


Skies Grown Darker

by parenthetical



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, spn: season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-26
Updated: 2007-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parenthetical/pseuds/parenthetical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set following 2.04 - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. Dean and Sam try to find a way to move on, but some things can't be outrun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written during Nano 2006, and the first fic I wrote in the Supernatural fandom. Title drawn from the Dream Theater album "Scenes From A Memory". Spoilers up to episode 2.04.

Dean lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Across the room - yet another poky motel room, with only a particularly garish floral carpet to distinguish it from any of the thousands of other rooms they'd stayed in - Sam was quietly unpacking some necessities from his bag, a little awkwardly due to his bandaged arm, and trying not to be too obvious as he sneaked glances at Dean.

Dean was aware of them, but felt he'd more than exceeded his quota of chick-flick moments for his entire lifetime. And they had fairly conclusively determined that there was nothing at all that Sam could say to help right now.

He suppressed a sigh and rubbed a hand tiredly across his face. Lying here staring at the ceiling like this made him feel like Sam in one of his more emo moods, and he knew he should get up, crack a joke, grab a shower, head out and find some action, _something_... But he really couldn't face it just yet. And he was exhausted, the kind of exhaustion that only came from spending the night digging graves and hunting an honest-to-god _zombie_, then being forced to spill his guts to his brother.

It really hadn't been a day to remember.

So he simply turned onto his side, not even bothering to undress, and slipped one hand under the pillow to touch the reassuring coolness of his knife, before allowing himself to drift into the oblivion of sleep.

~*~*~

When he opened his eyes again, the grey light of early morning room was filtering through the garish curtains. Dean blinked at them and then checked his watch.

Five thirty. _Fucking hell_, Dean thought in disbelief. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd crashed like that. It couldn't have been much later than eight when he'd dropped off, and he'd practically slept right through to morning.

Turning his head cautiously, he could see Sam sprawled across the other bed, tangled up in his blankets. A faint smile quirked unwillingly at Dean's lips. Regardless of how fucked up their lives were - and really, they were pretty damn fucked up - the fact that Sam was still sleeping at this time, rather than struggling with his nightmares, counted as a very good thing.

Something nagged at him briefly, touching across the edge of his mind before slipping out of grasp. A weird dream?

_Yeah, whatever_, Dean thought, and sat up, shoving aside the blanket Sam must have spread across him at some point during the night. Fretting over dreams was his brother's domain.

When he emerged from a blindingly hot shower some time later, Sam had turned over but was still sound asleep. Dean dressed as quietly as he could, then slipped out in search of coffee and newspapers.

~*~*~

Sam opened his eyes blearily and yawned, then sat up abruptly as he remembered the events of the previous day. Specifically, his tight-lipped brother finally telling him what was on his mind.

It was still early, as a glance at his watch confirmed, but Dean's bed was empty, with the blanket he had draped over his brother the previous evening when it had become clear he wasn't about to wake up any time soon lying roughly folded at the foot. The bathroom was silent: Dean was gone.

_Gone out_, Sam told himself sternly. Not _gone_. There was a difference. And okay, Sam still didn't like having Dean out of his sight so soon after thinking he was losing him forever, so soon after losing their father, with both of them still shell-shocked. He knew it was ridiculous, that Dean wasn't about to shatter or die the second he was out of Sam's reach, but that didn't change the way he felt. He was vaguely comforted by the fact that Dean obviously felt something similar, refusing to wait at the Roadhouse while Sam visited their mother's grave, even though Sam knew Dean would possibly have preferred to rip out his own fingernails than visit it himself.

And okay, Dean was gone now, but Sam trusted him not to have gone further than it took to locate a semi-decent cup of coffee. After the day he'd had yesterday, it was hardly surprising that he would want one. So Sam would just chill and wait for him to return. Unless he hadn't come back by the time Sam got out of the shower, in which case Sam might try ringing his cell phone, no matter how much shit Dean gave him for it later.

To his relief, he heard the key in the lock while he was washing his hair. "Hey," Dean called, a habitual reassurance: _Don't get excited, it's me_.

"Hey!" Sam called back, and if he rushed to finish up as quickly as possible, well, Dean needn't ever know.

"Got coffee," Dean announced when Sam emerged a few moments later. "Brought you one of your special girly coffees, even." He gestured vaguely at the Starbucks cup across the table, and tilted his head slightly to the side, gaze sweeping Sam consideringly. "How's the arm doing?"

Sam wondered if Dean was consciously trying to turn the discussion towards Sam's physical wellbeing and away from his own mental state. Either way, he acknowledged, he had probably pushed Dean as far as he could go the day before. So until Sam could find some way to help Dean with this, it was time to drop it for the time being and simply be there. "It's okay. They bandaged it up pretty good. I guess it's gonna get in the way for a while, but I don't think it'll stop me from kicking your ass or anything."

Dean snorted. "Bring it on, bitch. Or better yet, get your ass in gear. I'm starving. There's something 'bout spending days chasing after zombie chicks that gives me an appetite."

Sam rolled his eyes, and hid his smile by tugging on a shirt.

~*~*~

"So, we heading anywhere in particular?"

Dean shrugged. "Out of this state, for a start." His mouth tightened for a moment, then relaxed, and Sam probably wouldn't have even noticed if he weren't watching Dean so closely these days. "There're a few things that look like they might be our kind of gig. Poltergeist in Wisconsin. Possible haunting in Arkansas."

Sam eyed him. "Well, Wisconsin's closer. Unless you really want to drive all the way to Arkansas as an excuse for some quality time with your car."

Dean patted the Impala's roof comfortingly as he walked past Sam to shove the last bag into the trunk. "Nah, I'm good. Let's hit Wisconsin first."

The drive was surprisingly quiet. Sam had often thought that Dean's choice of music was one of the best ways of divining his mental state. Sam divided it into categories, ranging from music chosen purely to piss Sam off all the way to calming comfort music, via driving-through-the-night music and depressed-but-never-going-to-admit-it music. Today Dean was playing Metallica at a fairly low volume, and Sam didn't even voice a token objection. If music could help his brother keep it together, Sam would be happy to listen to the greatest hits of mullet rock for the rest of their lives. Though he really, really hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Sometime mid-morning Dean changed tape, turned the volume up, and started tapping along on the steering wheel. Sam couldn't quite hide his grin, and relaxed at last, leaning against the door to catch some more sleep.

~*~*~

The drive took the best part of the day, and Dean unwound gradually as he left what he'd now privately dubbed Zombie State behind him, with every intention of avoiding going back there for as long as he could.

He glanced across at his brother, who was slumped against the door and looked to be sleeping peacefully for once. _Good_, Dean thought, and wondered vaguely if Sam sleeping would ever again be something he took for granted.

They were getting closer to their destination now, and Dean turned the volume down and started paying closer attention to the road signs. He could have done with Sam's help navigating, but hell if Dean was about to wake him up for something as minor as that. Besides, he had it all under control.

Half an hour and a lot of cursing later, Sam woke up and shot him a look. "Where are we?"

Dean muttered something uncharitable under his breath, then, louder, said, "Almost there. The turn-off's got to be just down here..."

And holy shit, his luck had to be improving, because the turn-off totally was there, even though he'd guessed entirely at random. He shot Sam his cockiest grin, ignoring the raised eyebrow that said his brother hadn't been fooled for a moment, and took the turn-off.

Finding a motel proved relatively simple compared to the hassle of locating the goddamn town, although most of them seemed rather nicer than the places where he and Sam usually stayed. Still, they had quite a number of shiny new credit cards, and Dean figured they could cope this once.

The motel he finally drew up at even offered free wireless, and Dean felt a slight pang at the thought of his smashed laptop. Maybe it was time they scraped up the money to buy a new one. He didn't really want to use a fake credit card on such a crucial piece of equipment, but they couldn't go on relying on internet cafes for their research.

They ran quietly through their usual routine of making the room secure, one so familiar by now that no discussion was required. Salt across the doorway and on the window ledges, tiny devil's traps drawn on the entryways, walls and ceiling, weapons strategically positioned so that they were hidden from view yet within easy reach if needed.

"So, talk me through this gig," Sam said finally, sitting down on the bed nearest the bathroom. "A poltergeist, you said?"

"Yeah, a poltergeist," Dean confirmed, sitting down opposite him on the other bed. "I heard about something weird going on in some house here in Marshfield a few years back, actually, but I was up in northern Minnesota at the time, and I knew Caleb was down in this neck of the woods, so he ended up checking it out while I finished up the job I was working." He shrugged. "Caleb called me a few days later, said it was a bust. I took his word for it, headed out west after some harpies."

"But you think he was wrong," Sam surmised. "Things kept on happening in the house?"

"Yeah, your usual poltergeist attention-seeking shit," Dean said. "Flickering lights, cold spots, furniture shifting, you know the kind of stuff. Some couple moved in for a while, broke newly-weds, bought the place for a song. Sold up about six months later, and a couple of paranormal websites carried reports about the house. I called Caleb back up, asked him if he knew what the hell was going on."

Dean hesitated slightly and Sam raised his eyebrows in interest. "Dude, what?"

"He couldn't remember the house," Dean said finally. "I dunno, I mean, he thought it was a bust, so maybe it didn't seem like such a big deal to him. But it seemed a bit weird that he couldn't remember anything about it, or talking to me about it."

"That doesn't sound like Caleb," Sam agreed thoughtfully.

"No shit," Dean said emphatically. "But I was caught up in some other stuff at the time, and when I finally had the time to head up here, things had quietened down, no new reports at all. I figured, hey, we all have our bad days. Maybe Caleb got slammed over the head a few too many times around about then or something. So I let it go."

"Until now."

"Until now. Last internet cafe we stopped at, I checked out the usual websites, looking to see what might be worth investigating. Seems the house has had new occupants again for the past few months. Except they apparently moved out last week after their kid got hit by a chair that was flung across the room."

"Huh," Sam said. "Well, it sounds like it could be worth looking into. We should start at the library, find out about the history of the house. How much do you know?"

"Next to nothing," Dean said dismissively. "I just heard about the poltergeist shit last time, I didn't get as far as doing any in-depth research."

Sam grinned at him. "Wow, Dean, that's so unlike you. We all know how much you love hitting the books, man."

"Never fear, geek boy, I'm not trying to muscle in on your territory. Wouldn't want to deprive you of all your fun."

~*~*~

The library was easy to locate in the centre of town, just off Central Avenue. Dean shot one of his fakest charming grins at the librarian as they walked in, and headed immediately for the internet stations. Sam followed him.

"Here," Dean said a few moments later, shifting slightly to the side to give Sam a better view. "The report I was talking about."

"'Possible poltergeist activity?'" Sam read aloud, leaning closer. "'Marshfield residents James and Donna Blum have moved out of their home on West Ives Street, claiming their four-year-old daughter Jennifer was struck by a chair that flew across the kitchen. Previous residents have also reported flickering lights, moving furniture and strange noises.' Well, at least that gives us a basic address."

"We should try to track the Blums down, see what they can tell us," Dean said. "Shouldn't be too hard, Marshfield isn't that big."

"Yeah," Sam agreed absently. "But we should research the history of the house first. You got a house number?"

Dean clicked through a few pages. "245. 245 West Ives Street. It's on the edge of town, out to the west. We can go check it out tonight."

"I still want to check into the history first," Sam said. "Let's not go blundering in until we've got some idea what we might be dealing with."

He half-expected Dean to argue, as it did sound very much like a poltergeist, but to his surprise, Dean simply nodded. "Yeah, good plan. You want to start with the newspapers? I'll search online some more."

Sam raised an eyebrow, but decided not to call his brother on his near-unprecedented lack of bitching about research and just enjoy it while it lasted. "Okay. Let me know if you find anything."

Dean nodded absently, already bringing up Google.

Nearly an hour later, Sam looked up from his notes as Dean sank into the seat next to him. "What you got?"

"No murders in the house as far back as I can find," Dean said. "Small town, they don't get so many here. Your newspapers probably go further back, but I couldn't find any deaths there at all in the past ten years. Interestingly, though, nobody's stayed there too long. People seem to move in, stay a few months or a year or so and then move out again. Quite a few complaints about the usual poltergeist shit, but nothing like as much as I'd normally expect."

"Well, I found a few things," Sam said, flipping through the bound copies of the local newspaper to find the page he had marked. "Here. In 1954 a Simon Mason died in the house."

Dean studied the picture of the solemn-looking man. "Violent death?"

"That's the thing," Sam said, "apparently he died of natural causes. Sudden heart failure. He was only in his early thirties, but the article says he had some kind of undiagnosed problem."

"So what makes you think he's our poltergeist?" Dean asked. "I mean, okay, sometimes unexpected and sudden deaths can do that, if the person feels they've left things unfinished. But..."

"I'm not sure it is him," Sam said, flipping through to another article. "Check it out."

"Celia Mason," Dean read aloud. "Huh. Wife?"

"Wife," Sam agreed. "She committed suicide in the house about four months after her husband died. Slit her wrists, apparently. A neighbour found her. Seems that she never got over her husband's death."

"That could be it," Dean said, studying the photograph. Celia Mason had been a pretty woman, if you looked at her wavy red hair and ignored the grieving, empty expression in her eyes. "You find out where she's buried?"

"Local cemetery," Sam replied with a shrug. "But can we make certain it's her before we start digging up graves again?"

"For you, anything, princess," Dean said flippantly. "Let's go find this house and meet our poltergeist."

~*~*~

From the outside, the house didn't seem creepier than any other recently vacated house would. The EMF meter showed normal readings that the streetlights outside would account for. Dean shrugged at Sam and stood back to watch the street while Sam picked the lock on the front door. A few moments later they were slipping into the house, flashlights in hand, and closing the door behind them.

They shared a glance, then began to work their way methodically through the ground floor of the house. It was clear that it had been vacated very recently; most of the furniture was gone, but there was still a pile of boxes stacked in the front room, waiting to be collected.

"This is where the Blum kid got smacked with the chair," Dean observed as they checked out the kitchen. The EMF meter was remaining stubbornly silent. "Don't look like our poltergeist's feeling too frisky right now, though."

"Let's check upstairs," Sam said.

Upstairs seemed to be about as empty as the ground floor. The EMF meter flared briefly when they checked out the bathroom, but otherwise remained silent.

"You reckon this is where she killed herself?" Dean wondered aloud, pointing the flashlight beam around the bathroom.

"Well, she did slit her wrists. Makes sense," Sam pointed out. "I don't know, Dean. Maybe Caleb was right and this place is a bust."

Dean stared around at the bathroom, unseeing. "Maybe."

"I'm going to check out the kitchen again," Sam said, heading back out. "I think that's where her husband died, maybe she's more active there."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Dean said absently, still staring around him.

~*~*~

It was weird, Sam thought, but the kitchen didn't _feel_ quite as deserted as it had a few minutes ago. It felt... tense.

He knew better by now than to ignore his instincts, and shifted his grip to hold the rock salt-loaded shotgun more firmly, glancing around warily.

In the end, he caught sight of her reflected in one of the windows, and spun around. Celia was just a few feet away, staring at him with dead eyes. As she opened her mouth as if to speak, he was already bringing his shotgun to bear, but before he could do so, a drawer shot out of one of the kitchen cabinets, sailed across the room, and slammed into the place she'd been just a split second previously.

Sam stared around himself wildly, looking to see if she'd reappeared elsewhere in the room, but it appeared to be empty.

"DEAN!" he yelled.

Silence.

_Oh shit_. "_DEAN_!"

Finally, finally, god, he heard Dean's footsteps as he raced down the stairs.

"Sam, what the hell?" Dean demanded roughly as he appeared in the doorway. "You're down here one minute, tops, and suddenly you need to scream the place down?"

Sam gritted his teeth. "I wasn't _screaming_, asshole, I was trying to alert my deaf brother to the fact that the poltergeist was active down here, since you apparently spaced out and didn't even hear it throwing that drawer at me."

"The fuck?" Dean asked, sounding honestly baffled. "I would have heard that, dude, I wasn't that far away."

"I had to yell for you twice, man, you must have been having one hell of a good daydream," Sam muttered, and stuck out his hand. "Pass me the EMF meter?"

Dean complied wordlessly, which was unusual enough to make Sam look at him more closely. His brother looked slightly pale and... _off_, somehow. But at that moment Dean glanced up and caught him looking, and Sam quickly set to work, running the EMF detector around the drawer. It buzzed loudly.

Dean cleared his throat. "The poltergeist threw that at you?"

"Yeah," Sam said absently. "Well, actually, I'm not sure, maybe not. She was here, Dean. Celia Mason was here, right behind me. She looked like she was about to say something, but then the drawer went flying right at the spot where she'd been."

He glanced up again and saw Dean frowning.

"So... you're telling me she wasn't the one who threw the drawer? Something else threw it at her?"

Sam paused. "Well, fuck. Yes. We must be dealing with two ghosts here."

"Always knew you were the smart one, college boy," Dean muttered. "So, what. Celia and her husband?"

Sam straightened back up. "Maybe. But why would he be throwing things at her? It doesn't make sense, Dean."

His brother looked at him steadily. "I'm having a psychic vision, Sam. It's... you! Saying we need to... do _yet more research_."

"Jerk," Sam said without heat, unable to prevent the corner of his mouth from turning up slightly. "Let's get out of here."

Dean nodded his agreement and headed for the door.

Outside, they walked side by side towards the car, Dean digging in his pocket for the keys to the Impala. Sam turned towards the passenger door, but -

"Hey."

He turned back and caught the keys automatically before it even registered, then stared at his brother, who rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Don't make a big deal out of it, Sam. I'm just tired, all right?"

"Sure," Sam said slowly, hoping he didn't sound as sceptical as he felt. Not that he didn't believe Dean was tired - he'd driven all the way here that day, whereas Sam had spent most of the journey dozing. It was just that his brother would never normally surrender the keys unless he was _dying_, and not always even then.

Then again, maybe, just maybe, this was Dean starting to open up to him more, let Sam take up more of the slack. Admitting it when he needed help or he wasn't okay.

Yeah, well, Sam could dream. "Sure, fine. You sure you're okay, though?" And yeah, he was half-expecting Dean to get pissed off and snatch the keys back, but really, this was weirder than any poltergeist.

Dean sighed. "I'm okay, Sammy. Just tired. And a splitting headache all of a sudden. It's no big deal. C'mon, let's go."

Sam bit down on his lip to keep from saying anything more, and moved around the car to the driver's side.

The drive back to the motel passed in silence.

~*~*~

"So, you think we should talk to the family that just moved out?" Dean suggested over coffee the next morning, digging into the grease he called breakfast. "What was their name again?"

"Blum," Sam answered, picking up his notes and glancing through them as he sipped his own coffee. "Shouldn't be too hard to track them down."

"Maybe they can tell us a bit more about what was happening there," Dean murmured, clearly thinking aloud. "The poltergeist hit their kid, after all, so they must have seen something."

"Where do you want to start looking?" Sam asked. "Phone book?"

"Phone book," Dean agreed. "Failing that, I'm guessing they want to sell that house, so one of the local realtors must know where they're staying."

Sam nodded his agreement, and they finished eating in companionable silence. Sam kept sneaking tiny glances across at Dean, who seemed normal enough this morning. He would have liked to ask Dean if he was okay, but he knew better.

As it turned out, they struck it lucky with the phone book. There weren't many Blums in there. The first name listed was obviously the Blums who had lived in the haunted house; the second proved to be James Blum's parents. Sam listened half-heartedly as Dean spun a not-entirely-convincing tale to wheedle the person he was speaking to out of the Blums' new address, and evidently he seemed more convincing to strangers, because after just a few moments he scribbled down an address, thanked them, and hung up.

"We got it?" Sam asked.

Dean brandished the piece of paper. "Let's go."

~*~*~

The house where the Blums were now staying was right across the other side of town. Dean rang the doorbell while Sam glanced around at the front yard.

The door was opened by a thin blonde woman who looked from one to the other of them uncertainly. "Can I help you?"

Dean flashed her a charming smile. "Good morning, ma'am. I'm Dean, this is Sam. We've been told you own the house for sale up on West Ives Street and, well, we were wondering if you could tell us a bit more about it."

The woman continued to look uncertain for a moment, but Sam smiled at her too, and she relented. "Why don't you both come on in? My husband's out at work, but I'll make you some coffee and try to answer your questions if I can."

"Thank you very much," Sam murmured as they followed her inside.

Indoors, it was clear that the Blums were still in the process of moving in. Boxes were stacked haphazardly in corners, pictures were propped against the walls rather than hung up, and some of the furniture had clearly not yet been assigned a permanent position.

"I'm sorry about the mess," Donna Blum said, laughing a little. "You know what moving house is like. I'm afraid the place is still a little chaotic. And we haven't even fetched all the boxes across yet."

Dean flashed her another grin. "Oh, I don't know, you should see how our place looks right now. And it looks like things here are starting to come together."

"Slowly but surely," Donna agreed. "Come on through to the kitchen. The coffee's been unpacked, at least."

The coffee had indeed been unpacked, and Sam accepted his cup gratefully.

"So you two might be interested in our old house?" Donna asked once they were all seated.

"You could say that," Dean answered easily. "To be honest, we were kind of wondering why you moved out so suddenly. It looks like a real nice place, from the stuff the realtor showed us. We just wondered whether maybe there might be something major we were overlooking, if you see what I mean."

Donna laughed. "No, not really. It's a lovely house, and a nice quiet part of town. We just decided we wanted a change. We're a bit closer to James' - my husband's - workplace here."

"Really?" Sam asked. "We heard a rumour that the wiring might be shot - you know, flickering lights, that kind of thing. Did you experience anything like that?"

Donna frowned slightly, then shook her head. "Not that I can recall, no. Everything worked fine. Really, we were very happy there, happier than we've ever been."

"Mommy!" came a squeal just then, and a little blonde girl came rushing into the room. "Mommy, look what I - " She cut off suddenly upon seeing Sam and Dean.

Sam couldn't help but notice the fading remnants of a bruise colouring her right cheek, and glanced across at Dean, who held his gaze for a moment before looking back at the girl.

"Jenny, honey, this is Dean and Sam, and they're thinking of buying our old house," Donna explained brightly. "What did you want to show me? Did you finish colouring in your picture?"

The girl nodded vigorously without taking her eyes off the brothers, but she slowly edged closer and handed the piece of paper she had been holding to her mother. Glancing across at it, Sam saw it was a picture of a clown, evidently from a child's colouring book, that had been carefully coloured in with bright, gaudy colours.

"Oh, honey, that's beautiful!" Donna exclaimed. "You made a real good job of this one."

"Wow, you sure did," Dean agreed, leaning across to admire the picture. "You're quite an artist, Jenny. You do a lot of these?"

Jenny nodded shyly, and Dean smiled at her. Her mother laughed fondly. "Jenny loves colouring in. She'll be an artist when she grows up, at this rate."

"Very cool," Dean said approvingly. "I dig artists. You should hold an exhibition, kiddo."

Jenny beamed at him and suddenly grabbed his hand. "Come see my pictures! I'll show you them. C'mon!"

Dean laughed and got to his feet.

"Oh, Jenny, no -" her mother protested, but Dean held up his free hand, grinning reassuringly.

"I'd love to see your pictures, Jenny, if your mom doesn't mind."

"Mooooooom?" Jenny pleaded, turning wide eyes up at her mother.

Donna relented, helplessly. "Well, if Dean would like to see them -"

"Woooooo!" Jenny squealed triumphantly. "C'mon, Dean!" She took off, rushing out of the room, and Dean laughed again and followed her.

Sam smiled reassuringly at Donna and took another sip of his coffee.

"I do hope Dean doesn't mind," Donna said, looking slightly flustered, "she gets awfully excited about her colouring in. He doesn't have to go along with it."

Sam shook his head. "Dean loves kids, honestly. He doesn't mind a bit."

Donna smiled. "You two thinking of maybe adopting some day?"

Sam didn't _quite _choke on his coffee as he suddenly realised what conclusion she'd jumped to, but it was a near thing.

~*~*~

Jenny had a lot of colouring books. Dean was duly impressed.

"Wow. Nice work on Snoopy's nose in this one. Pink's a real good colour on him. I always saw him as more into blue myself, but you're winning me round, here."

Jenny giggled and turned the page to find a picture that hadn't been coloured yet. "Here! You do blue, I'll do pink."

Dean spared one wary glance at the living-room door to make sure Sam wasn't about to walk in and see this, then accepted the blue felt-tip pen and began carefully colouring in his designated half of Snoopy's nose. "So, you like your new home? Or do you miss your old one?"

The little girl was concentrating on her colouring, tongue sticking out slightly. "Liked it there. But Mommy says here's nicer."

"Yeah? I went and saw it yesterday. Seemed like a nice house." Dean hesitated a moment. "But yeah, this place is nice too. Lots of space for your art. It can be hard, though, moving. I... My family moved around a lot, when I was about your age. Sometimes I wished we didn't have to."

"You went over the line," Jenny pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Dean said, trying to repair the damage. "Well, Snoopy has a really tiny nose. Maybe he'll be happier with a bigger one. Be able to smell more, you know."

Jenny didn't reply, but she brought her pink felt tip outside the lines to join her half up properly with Dean's, and Dean figured that meant he was forgiven.

"So," Dean said slowly, trying for casual. "You been colouring in your cheek, too? Because I gotta tell you, blue may work on Snoopy, but I think pink would definitely be a better colour on you."

"It's a _bruise_, not colouring in," Jenny said, giggling slightly. "You're silly."

"Yeah," Dean said, mouth quirking. "I get told that a lot. So how'd you get the bruise, Jenny? Must've been sore."

"Don't 'member," Jenny murmured, sucking on the lid of her felt tip. "Just had it."

"Huh. You think you just forgot how it happened?" Dean hesitated, watching her closely but trying to be subtle about it. "Or do you mean it was just there all of a sudden?"

For a moment he didn't think she was going to answer, but then Jenny looked up at him, and he met her confused eyes evenly.

"Was just there. It was dinner time, and then it was there, and Mommy said - she said we were going and not coming back." Her lip was trembling slightly now. "Was it my fault? That we had to go?"

"No, Jenny," Dean said instantly, leaning forward to make sure she could see how sincere he was. "Listen to me. Never think that, okay? I promise you, it isn't your fault at all. Your parents, they just want you to be safe, all right? And your mom's right, this house is way nicer."

Jenny sniffed. "I like my new room."

Dean grinned at her. "I bet it's awesome. You gonna hang Snoopy up on the wall there?"

"No," Jenny said, and clumsily tore the page out of the book. Then she held it out to him. "You take him. I got lots."

Slowly, Dean reached out and accepted the page. "Hey. Thanks."

She smiled at him. "You're welcome," she said, before adding, "You went over the line, anyway."

~*~*~

"What's that?" Sam asked, nodding in the direction of the piece of paper Dean was carefully folding and slipping into his pocket.

"Nothin'," Dean said hastily. "You get anything out of the mom?"

Sam let it go for now, walking beside Dean across the yard and towards the car. "Not much. It's kind of weird, that report we read said the family had complained of flickering lights, moving furniture, all the usual poltergeist stuff, but she didn't mention anything like that. And I don't think she was just pretending because she thought we were potential buyers, somehow. I could be wrong, but she genuinely didn't seem to know anything about it. I don't know, dude. Maybe the report was inaccurate?"

"No," Dean said, crossing around to the driver's side and resting his arms on the car roof. Sam unconsciously mirrored his position. "You saw the bruise on the kid's cheek. I agree, man, I don't think Donna was lying, but I still think it happened. Hell, we saw for ourselves last night that something's going on in that house."

Sam sighed, running one finger absently across the Impala's roof. "Did the girl say anything to you?"

"Apart from bitching about my lack of colouring-in skills?" Dean muttered. "Actually, yeah. She said that it happened at dinner one night. As far as she remembers, one minute she was fine, the next she had that bruise and her mom was telling her they were moving out."

Sam frowned across the Impala at him. "So... people are forgetting things?"

"I think something's removing things from their memory, yeah," Dean said roughly. "It would explain Caleb's reaction, too."

"But..." Sam shook his head, not in denial, just confusion. "I mean, how? Why? You ever heard of anything like this before?"

"No," Dean admitted. "Though remember Ellicott? He was able to fuck with people's minds. I don't think it's out of the question, Sam." He opened the door and slid behind the wheel.

Sam got in the car. "Okay, so what now?"

"Salt and burn?" Dean asked, his voice hopeful.

Sam sent him a sardonic glance. "That's your answer to _everything_, Dean."

"That's because it _works_ on everything, little brother," Dean replied blithely.

"Hook man."

"Hey, it worked there too, we just -"

"Possessed truck."

"If you'd found a way to torch it -"

"Haunted painting."

"FINE, Sam, you've made your point already!" Dean snapped, turning the key sharply in the ignition. "What do you suggest, then?"

Sam didn't even try to suppress his grin. "I think we need to do more research into Celia and Simon Mason. Maybe we can find someone still living who knew them, even."

"Oh, great, more research," Dean groused, turning out onto the main street. "Sometimes I seriously worry that you have some kind of addiction, Sam."

~*~*~

"17 South Apple Avenue," Sam said, shutting the car door behind him. "Yeah, this is it."

Dean sighed. "Fine, let's just get this over with." He strode up to the door and rang the bell. Sam followed hastily.

It was a few moments before the door opened. The woman who answered had white hair tucked neatly back into a tight bun. She looked to be in her early seventies, Sam guessed, but her eyes were sharp as she glanced from one to the other of them. "Good afternoon, can I help you?"

"Good afternoon, ma'am," Sam said earnestly. "Excuse me, but are you by any chance June Davison?"

She frowned. "I am. And who might you be?"

"My name is Sam, this is Dean," Sam answered, doing his best to appear as sweet and non-threatening as possible. "We're psychology students, conducting research, and if it's not too great an imposition, we were wondering if you might be willing to spare us a few moments to talk about your sister."

Mrs Davison stared at them, and Sam willed Dean not to say anything untoward. For once.

"My sister is dead, and has been these past forty-odd years," Mrs Davison said slowly, still frowning.

"We know that, ma'am," Sam said hastily, rushing in before Dean, who had been opening his mouth, could speak. "Our research is based on case studies of people who have... well, taken their own lives. We're sorry to intrude, but -"

"- But," Dean interrupted, meeting Mrs Davison's eyes intently, "anything you could tell us might help us to help other people."

Sam held his breath for a moment, but Mrs Davison was nodding slowly. "Well, I suppose... Why don't you come on in for a few minutes."

~*~*~

"She took Simon's death very hard," Mrs Davison said quietly. "His passing was like a bolt from the blue. Oh, afterwards you always think of a thousand little signs you should have noticed that something wasn't right, but at the time no one even suspected he had a heart condition. It wasn't something you expected in someone so young, and he'd always been healthy enough."

Sam tried very hard not to look at Dean, hoping that the closed-off expression he could see out of the corner of his eye was discomfort caused by the rigidly unyielding sofa they were perched on, and not Dean thinking about their father again. Either way, there wasn't a great deal Sam could do.

"Was your sister with him when it happened?" he asked.

"Yes," Mrs Davison answered, nodding gently. "They were home alone together at the time. She told me later that he just... collapsed. Just like that. She called 911 and asked for an ambulance, then went back and held him and tried to get him to breathe. It took the ambulance about twenty minutes to arrive."

"It must have been a very traumatic experience," Sam murmured.

"It haunted her," Mrs Davison said bluntly. "She said she couldn't forget any of it, not for a moment, just couldn't get it out of her head - the way he clutched his chest and collapsed, waiting for the ambulance, trying to breathe for him, crying and holding him and begging for him not to leave her..." She swallowed. "She just couldn't move past it at all. I think that's why she did what she did, in the end. She held on for four months, but she wasn't really living during those last four months, just reliving it again and again."

"We're sorry to have brought all of this up for you again, ma'am, but you've really helped us a lot." Sam glanced across at Dean to see if he had any other questions he wanted to ask, but Dean just stared back at him, stony-faced. Sam shook his head slightly and got to his feet. "Thank you very much for your time, Mrs Davison."

Back out on the sidewalk, Sam tried to catch Dean's eye and failed. Dean headed straight for the car and got in. Sighing, Sam followed suit.

"Dean, what's going on?" he asked, settling into his side of the car and twisting round to watch his brother more closely.

"Celia Mason is the one wiping things from people's memories," Dean said tightly, hands clenched on the steering wheel as he peeled away from the kerb. "She couldn't handle her own, so she's taking them away from other people. And I'm guessing her husband is the poltergeist, that he's trying on some level to stop her from doing it."

Okay, so that hadn't been what Sam was asking about, but he would go along with it for now. "So she's trying to help people."

The car swerved slightly and Dean turned his head to stare at him for a moment. "She's - what? She's fucking with their minds, Sam. She's stealing things from them, important things."

"Yeah, I know," Sam said. "I get that, Dean. But she isn't doing it to hurt anyone. She's trying to help them, in her own way." Sam couldn't help but think of how he had felt after Jessica's death, how it had been all he could think of, all he could see, and how he had relived it in nightmare after nightmare for months. And he'd had Dean beside him and a job to do. He imagined the pretty red-haired woman from the photograph sitting in that house, reliving her husband's death again and again until finally she took her own life to escape it, and felt desperately sorry for her.

He wouldn't wish reliving something like that on anyone.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Dean muttered, tension written in the clench of his jaw and the white of his knuckles on the steering wheel.

Sam very nearly said something like _What would you know about what that's like?_ but bit his lip sharply, because that was unfair and he knew it. The memory of Dean in tears, just days ago, was still too fresh in his memory. _What's dead should stay dead_. Yeah, Dean did know a thing or seven about it, and had done even before their father's death. Sam knew that, even if his own grief for Jess had at times been so overwhelming that everything else had seemed to pale by comparison.

So he forced himself to release his tension in a deep sigh. "Whatever, Dean. Look, I'm not arguing with you here, okay? We have to stop her, I get that. And the poltergeist too. But we can't break into the graveyard until after dark, so what are we going to do until then?"

Dean's grip on the steering wheel gradually loosened and he sighed too. "Head back to the motel, I guess. Maybe grab a few hours of shut-eye if we're going to be digging up graves all night."

Sam glanced across at him. Grabbing naps in the middle of the day wasn't normally like his brother, a night of grave-digging ahead of them or not, and he was reminded again of how exhausted Dean had looked the previous night. "You all right, man?"

"Fine," Dean said briefly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

It wasn't a question. It was a warning: _drop it_.

Sam turned away to stare out of his window, then frowned. "Dude, you just missed our turn-off."

"What?" Dean demanded.

"Our turn-off," Sam repeated, unable to suppress the grin spreading across his face. "We were meant to take that left back there."

"What the... Oh, for -" Dean took the next left far too sharply, and Sam couldn't help but crack up at his brother's irritation, because this was just too good. Dean didn't _get _lost. Oh, if they were going somewhere they'd never been before and weren't sure of the way, that was one thing, but Dean had an almost uncanny sense of direction and he never forgot places he'd been or how to get there.

Except now, judging by the weird turns Dean was taking, he was actually, genuinely, hopelessly lost himself, and Sam couldn't stop laughing.

"Would you just _shut the fuck up_," Dean ground out, taking another left when he should have been taking a right.

"Oh, this is too funny," Sam laughed. "Dude, you totally deserve this for all the times you've mocked me for getting lost, you know."

"Really, Sam, you can shut it any time now."

Sam relented, though he didn't stop grinning. "You need to take a right up here. Then keep going straight ahead for a minute or two, and take another right when we see the trees. The motel's just down the road from there."

Dean followed his directions silently, obviously still fuming at the motel for having the temerity not to be where he thought it should. Oh, Sam was going to bring this up for _years_.

"Seriously, man," Sam said as they finally drew up in front of the motel, "you should have said if you were too tired to drive. I know you old people need your sleep -"

Dean cut the ignition and climbed out, slamming the door behind him. Sam couldn't help laughing again.

~*~*~

"Dean? Hey, Dean, come on, wake up."

Dean groaned and tried to force his eyes open. They felt gritty and hot, and he really, really wanted to carry on sleeping. Not that his dream was that good - well, all right, there was this black-haired chick, but it really wasn't _that_ kind of dream - but consciousness felt decidedly unappealing right now.

"If you don't wake up now, Dean, I'm going to have to resort to extreme measures," Sam's voice warned.

Coming from Sam, that was a threat. Normally Dean was a light sleeper, which had saved his life more than once, but Sam took great delight in finding unpleasant ways to wake him up when the opportunity arose. Sam had bitched about Dean putting Nair in his shampoo for _months_, but Dean felt he had been entirely justified given how Sam had woken him up the previous day. Sammy could be a real bastard sometimes.

"I'm awake already," he mumbled, before Sam could get any clever ideas. He forced himself into a vaguely sitting position and scrubbed his hands across his eyes until the world came slowly into focus. Sam was standing over him holding out a cup of -

"God, coffee," Dean said, grabbing it from him and inhaling the scent like an addict. He pulled off the lid and raised the cup to his lips, and oh, god, he'd needed that. And he took back everything bad he'd ever thought about Sam. Sometimes Sammy could be a fucking _godsend_.

"Better?" Sam asked, sitting down on the other bed, facing him. "You were pretty out of it."

"Better," Dean agreed, gulping down more of the sweet, sweet caffeine. "What time is it?"

"Just after seven," Sam said. "I figured we could go grab something to eat and then head over to the cemetery."

Dean nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

Dinner was quiet. Dean didn't bother flirting with their waitress; it was just another one of those things that had lost their appeal over the past few months. Since their father's death.

It was still hard to say those words, even inside his own mind. But he did, and he didn't flinch from them. Denial would be betrayal.

That was one of things he just didn't _get_ about Sam. He was aware that Sam sometimes wished he didn't know the things he knew; hell, Sam had come right out and said it a few times. And what Sam had said that afternoon... Could Sam really want that? To just forget it all? Forget Dad's death, and Jessica's, and Mom's, and who the hell knew what else?

Dean couldn't even imagine that. It would be a betrayal of them, and a betrayal of himself, too. He wouldn't be the same person without all of those things. He might wish that they hadn't happened, but he would never wish not to know that they had. They were part of him.

"You not eating?" Sam asked, glancing up from his pansy-assed salad.

Dean reapplied himself hurriedly to his burger. "Sure I'm eating. Just... savouring."

"Uh-huh," Sam said, and Dean carefully refused to look up. Sam had been watching him a little more closely, almost hovering, since Dean had given up and spilled his guts the other day. And it had become even more obvious since Dean had asked Sam to drive the previous night.

Honestly, you would think he never let Sam drive his car.

"So, we know where the graves are located in the cemetery?" Dean asked, pre-emptively changing the non-existent subject.

"Not so much," Sam admitted. "But how hard can it be to find them?"

~*~*~

"How hard can it be to find them," Dean muttered under his breath. "Jesus, Sammy, you just had to go and jinx us, didn't you?"

Hillside Cemetery was somewhat larger than they had expected, sprawling across a large hill in the north-west of the town, overlooking most of Marshfield. It was almost fully dark now, and street lamps and house lights were twinkling down below. If he tried, Dean could just make out their haunted house, further out to the west, dark and deserted, although soon there would be too little light to make it out, and it would become a slightly larger patch of darkness than normal on West Ives Street.

After a few minutes of searching, Dean and Sam had split up to cover ground faster, examining the grave markers for the two names they were looking for. Dean fervently hoped Celia and Simon were buried next to each other, so this didn't become more complicated than necessary. He could admit, if only to himself, that splitting up like this was putting him slightly on edge. Which was ridiculous, because neither of their ghosts was about to show up in the graveyard.

"Dean!" Sam called out.

Dean didn't run. He just... moved very quickly in the direction of Sam's shout.

"Found them," Sam said as Dean approached, pointing his flashlight at the two graves.

_In Loving Memory  
Celia Mason_

read the one on the left, and beside it:

_Simon Mason  
Beloved husband and friend_

Dean dragged in a deep breath and released it. Okay. Sam had found the graves. That was all. That was good.

"Okay," he said. "You stay here so we don't lose them, and I'll go back to the car and grab the supplies."

Ten minutes later, they had both stripped down to T-shirts and taken a grave each to dig. Dean kept a watchful eye on Sam, not entirely buying his brother's assurances that his wrist was fine, but beyond a wince or two, Sam seemed okay, and was making steady enough progress that Dean was forced to concentrate more on his own digging. It would be a cold day in hell before Sam finished digging up a grave before him. Particularly with a broken wrist. Dean had his pride.

After a while, Dean paused for a short break, clambering out of the hole he'd dug to wipe the sweat off his forehead and inspect Sam's progress. His wrist didn't seem to have slowed him down much at all. He wasn't down quite as deep as Dean - Dean was fairly certain he'd struck the coffin lid on his last stroke - but very nearly. They'd be done fairly soon, at this rate.

He stared down at the town spread beneath them, then frowned.

"Sam, get up here."

His tone must have registered, because Sam hauled himself out of the hole at once and joined him.

Dean pointed across to the west. "That's West Ives Street across there, right?"

Sam squinted, studying the pattern of the streetlights. "Well, that main road is West Veterans Parkway, which means that's West Ives Street, yeah. Why?"

"Because there are lights on in the house," Dean said grimly.

"What - wait, _the _house? Are you sure?"

"Pretty damn sure," Dean said. "I looked while we were hunting for the graves, and the place was dark then. Someone's in the house. Remember those boxes? Maybe the Blums went back to pick them up or something."

Sam was silent for a moment, then he swore. "Shit. We'd better work fast, then."

"Not good enough." Dean shook his head. "If your wrist's up to it, you should finish up here. I'm almost through in the other grave, it shouldn't take you more than a couple of minutes to finish it up too. I'll take the Impala and drive to the house, get those people out of there."

Sam hesitated, but there was no real time for debate, and Sam clearly knew it as well as Dean did. He nodded, and Dean grabbed his jacket and set off at a dead sprint for the gate.

~*~*~

Dean drove fast, but the Impala responded as she always did, taking the corners smoothly for him. It was barely a couple of minutes later that he was pulling up outside the house, but those were still two minutes too many for his liking.

He'd been right, unfortunately. The lights were on.

He half-debated calling Sam to tell him, but decided against it. Sam needed to concentrate on salting and burning the bones as quickly as possible, and Dean needed to get whoever was inside out of the way.

He knocked loudly on the front door once, then simply opened it and stepped inside.

"Hello?" he called out, moving methodically along the corridor, glancing into each room as he passed by, keeping his shotgun hidden as best he could. If the Blums were there and in no trouble, he didn't particularly want to alarm them, but he certainly hadn't been about to come inside without rock salt.

A floorboard creaked upstairs, and Dean took a more secure grip on his shotgun and started cautiously up the stairs.

He'd more or less expected the sight that awaited him when he reached the bathroom, but it sent a shock through him nonetheless. Donna Blum was standing there, eyes dazed, as Celia Mason cradled her face with one hand -

and Jesus, she looked familiar, but not from the photograph -

_fuck_, he'd seen her last night, she'd got him and he hadn't even remembered until now, no wonder he'd been feeling so -

and he couldn't take the shot with Donna that close, not without hitting her too, and he knew first-hand how painful rock salt could be.

Fortunately, Celia seemed to see him at that moment and released Donna, who swayed dizzily. Dean took two strides forward and grabbed Donna's arm, dragging her out of the bathroom.

"Donna, come on! Head for the front door! Go! Now!"

The order seemed to clear her head somewhat, because Donna looked around in sudden fright and then dashed for the stairs. Dean followed behind, keeping his shotgun at the ready. Celia might appear to have vanished for the moment, but he had no illusions that she was properly gone. He was fairly certain he'd feel the difference immediately whenever Sam finished salting and burning the bones.

Donna had reached the front door; she wrestled with the handle for a moment, but then wrenched it open and ran outside. Dean hazarded one last glance behind him - god, he wished Sam was here to watch his back - then moved for the door too.

That glance back cost him a split-second he could not afford.

The door slammed shut in his face, and he spun back to see Celia right in front of him, all long red hair and dead eyes.

Dean raised the shotgun and fired.

~*~*~

Sam finally broke through into Celia's coffin, and smashed it fully open with a few careful blows of his shovel. For a moment he debated whether to open up the other coffin first before setting both on fire at the same time, but he remembered Dean's theory that Simon was reacting to what Celia was doing. If so, that made removing Celia from the equation as quickly as possible the key.

He pulled himself out of the hole, grabbed the container of gasoline in his good hand and poured a substantial measure over the bones, followed by a healthy dose of rock salt. Then he set a rag on fire with his lighter and tossed it into the grave.

The fire spread across the bones, lapping at them hungrily, and Sam waited until he was sure the fire was doing its work before jumping into the second grave. Dean had been right, he had reached the coffin, and it only took another couple of minutes' work for Sam to clear it, break into it, then salt the bones and set them on fire, too.

He watched for a moment, then, satisfied, grabbed his coat and dug out his cell phone, hitting the speed dial for Dean.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

Sam was just about to start running and wishing that Dean hadn't taken the Impala when Dean answered. "H'llo?"

"Hey," Sam said, a little breathless with relief, unable to suppress his grin. "I think we're done. Salted and burned. How are things looking there? Did you get whoever was there out?"

There was a slight pause, then Dean cleared his throat. "Um, yeah. It was... it was Donna Blum. She's gone."

Sam frowned. Dean sounded... off. "Dean, you okay?"

"...Yeah," Dean said, then again, more certainly this time, "Yeah, I'm okay, Sammy. They didn't go without a fight, but I'm okay. And you're right, we're done, they're gone. Nice work."

Sam let out a sigh of relief. "You too. But hey, don't think you're leaving me to fill these graves back in by myself, man. Get your ass back up here, okay?"

Dean laughed softly. "My ass will be there in a few minutes, bitch. Think you can hold out that long?"

"Screw you, asshole," Sam said, then hung up, grinning, before Dean could utter the filthy comeback Sam just _knew_ he was about to make.

~*~*~

It was in fact closer to half an hour before Dean returned, and Sam had almost finished filling the graves back in, but any thoughts of bitching Dean out died when he saw how his brother was looking.

"Jesus, Dean, what the hell happened? Are you okay?"

Dean waved away his concern, but allowed Sam to push him down to sit on a nearby gravestone, and that was a sure sign he wasn't well if ever Sam saw one. "I'm all right, Sam. Just a bit..." He trailed off, and Sam shook his head in disbelief.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me on the phone? Look, just sit here a moment, okay? I'm almost finished here, so give me another minute and then we can get out of here so I can take a proper look at you back at the motel."

Dean didn't even try to argue, and Sam felt his worry grow. True to his word, though, it only took a couple of minutes to finish filling in the second grave. Then he took another few seconds to shove the containers of salt and gasoline into the rucksack they'd brought them in and grab the shovels before returning to Dean's side. Dean looked up and even managed a grin at his approach, but Sam wasn't buying it for a second.

"How are you feeling? No bullshit, Dean, tell me."

His brother rolled his eyes. "Oh, knock it off, Sam, I've had plenty worse. I just want to go back to the motel and crash for a while, okay? Nothin' serious. Come on, we done here?"

Sam sighed in frustration. "Fine. Whatever. Let's go."

He wasn't quite annoyed enough to pass Dean one of the shovels to carry, because he knew damn well that his brother would take it, regardless of the fact that he was clearly not entirely with it and had a thin thread of blood trickling down the side of his head. As soon as they reached the motel, Sam was going to force Dean to let him take a proper look at that.

There was something of a nasty moment when Dean wanted to climb over the wall, the same way they'd entered, and Sam had to talk very fast to persuade him to wait while Sam picked the padlock on the gates instead. Admittedly, Dean had somehow managed to scramble over the wall when he'd returned earlier, but he was now walking in the kind of unnaturally straight line that spoke of immense concentration. Eventually Dean heaved a martyred sigh ("When the hell did you turn into such a mother hen, Sam?") and left via the gate with bad grace.

He surrendered the car keys to Sam without an argument, though. Clearly, Sam thought in annoyance, risking breaking his skull while climbing over walls was one thing, but heaven forbid he risk crashing his car.

Back at the hotel, finally, Sam forced his brother to sit on one of the beds under the main light and checked his head. It really didn't look that bad, he was forced to concede. Dean now seemed to have reached a "tolerate the crazy baby brother" kind of mood and sat with something approximating patience while Sam checked his pupils and decided he didn't have a concussion after all.

"Dude, I told you, I didn't even hit my head."

"And this blood is what? Some kind of stigmata?" Sam asked drily, carefully cleaning the cut. "What did happen, then?"

Dean shrugged, a little awkwardly. "I went in, found Donna in the bathroom. Celia had her. Let her go, though. Donna ran for it, I covered her. Door slammed all of a sudden. Celia and the poltergeist got into it, everything went rather blurry, and then I was on the floor with my cell ringing. You make a real good alarm clock, Sammy, I ever tell you that? Phone calls, yelling, rats in the bed... Whenever I need wakin' up, you're my man. Hell, even when I don't need it."

Sam frowned. "Dean, did Celia get you?"

Dean frowned back. "_Get _me? What are you, twelve?"

"I'm serious, man. Did she have a chance to mess with you?"

"Shot her full of rock salt when she got close. Twice," Dean said. "I don't know, dude, I probably wouldn't remember it if she did, would I? But she's gone, so even if she did try something, it should be over now. I just need sleep, seriously."

Sam studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay, fine. You want to go check on Donna tomorrow before we leave town? Make sure she's okay?"

Dean winced and began stripping off his T-shirt. "Might be better not to. If Celia did a number on her memories, she might be a bit confused about what went on and not entirely keen on people who rush into her house brandishing shotguns. We should leave as soon as it's light, just in case."

"You need a hell of a lot longer than four hours' sleep, Dean. You've been pretty out of it, no matter how much you hate hearing it."

"Jeez, Sammy, you want to drive that badly, you could just ask, you know."

Sam grinned reluctantly. "Get some sleep, asshole. I'll be waking you up again in four hours."

"Some things never change," Dean muttered around a yawn.

~*~*~

Sam debated briefly whether to stick around in Marshfield a little longer anyway, but Dean had had a point; skipping out early might save them a few problems, and Dean did for once seem content to settle down in the passenger seat and go back to sleep with a minimum of bitching.

He headed south. They hadn't talked about where to head next, but south was a fairly good bet. Maybe Dean really would want to go check out whatever that haunting in Arkansas he'd mentioned was about, or maybe they'd find a new gig a bit closer. Maybe they'd drive back down to the Roadhouse and see if Ash had come up with anything. Sam thought he would probably have called if he had, but with Ash, you just never knew.

Sam rolled down the window and enjoyed the early morning sunshine, the way the Impala purred its way around the corners, his brother's uncharacteristic silence, breathing evenly and slumped in the seat next to him.

Sometimes, life was pretty good, really.

It couldn't last, of course. They'd been on the road for less than an hour when Dean stirred, yawned, scrubbed a hand across his face, and opened his eyes.

"Hey," Sam said casually. "How you doing?"

"Better," Dean answered, glancing at his watch. "Where are we?"

"Should be coming up on Wisconsin Rapids soon," Sam said. "We could stop and grab some breakfast."

"Mmmm, sounds like a plan," Dean agreed. "We got a new gig?"

"Well, you mentioned that haunting in Arkansas," Sam reminded him. "Or we could find a new job nearer here, work our way down slowly."

"I'd say we should get the hell out of Wisconsin, at least," Dean said. "Head a bit further south, see if we can't pick up Dad's trail again."

Sam almost drove off the road.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sam. Sammy. Listen to me. I hate to break it to you, but you're never gonna be Willow. I'm sorry, but you're just too tall, man."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sushi incident mentioned is a reference to [this awesome fic](http://zooey-glass04.livejournal.com/32857.html) by , who kindly agreed to let me borrow it. &lt;3

"WATCH IT!" Dean yelled, lunging for the steering wheel. "Jesus, Sammy, what the fuck?! Pull over!"

Sam still hadn't managed to close his mouth, but he did pull the car over onto the shoulder, because Jesus, this - this couldn't - Dean couldn't - oh, _fuck_.

"See if I ever let you drive again!" Dean ranted, running one hand across the dashboard, though Sam wasn't sure whether he was trying to reassure himself or the Impala. "What the _fuck_, Sam?!"

"What the fuck _me_? What the fuck _you_! What the _fuck_, Dean?!" Sam yelled back, adrenaline flooding his system and heart pounding, half from the near car crash and half from the shock of what Dean had said.

Oh god, this was bad.

"What? I say we should head south, you damn near crash the car, and you're asking _me_ what the fuck?" Dean demanded.

"Not the heading south part," Sam bit out. "The part about... about finding Dad." His voice cracked slightly.

"What?" Dean asked, and god, he sounded genuinely confused. "That's what we've been doing all this time, Sam, trying to find Dad. I know you two have your issues, but that shouldn't be making you drive my car off the road!"

Sam lowered his head to rest on the steering wheel.

Dean would not ever, under any circumstances, joke about this. He had forgotten. At some point, Celia had evidently gotten to him, and had stolen Dean's memory of their father's death.

And god only knew what else, too.

Oh fuck, this was really, _really _bad.

"Sammy," Dean said, the anger gone from his voice, replaced by concern. "Sam, talk to me. What the hell is going on here?"

Sam swallowed hard and stared at his shaking fingers, completely unable to look up and meet his brother's eyes. How could he possibly tell Dean? Obviously _not_ telling Dean was not an option, but how could he possibly stand to break that news to his brother and watch him struggle with it all over again?

"Sam, you're starting to scare me, here," Dean murmured, and there was a very light touch against Sam's hair.

Sam blinked back tears, then drew a deep, shaking breath and sat up. "Dean... okay. We're only, like, fifteen minutes away from Wisconsin Rapids. Let's get there, and grab a motel room, and then... then we'll talk."

"No, Sam, talk to me now," Dean insisted. "I want to know what's going on."

"Dean, _please_," Sam said, and forced himself to meet his brother's worried eyes. "Please, we can't do this here."

Dean studied him for a moment, but Sam couldn't hold his gaze, looking down and fumbling with the key in the ignition instead.

"All right, get out and we'll swap places," Dean said finally.

"No, Dean, I really think -" Sam started to protest.

"Like hell, Sam," Dean said flatly. "You're in no condition to drive right now. I've had some sleep, I can handle a fifteen-minute drive. Certainly a damn sight better than you can at the moment. Don't even think of arguing with me." He was already opening his door.

Sam sighed and admitted defeat. In truth, he didn't feel up to driving; he was just reluctant to let Dean do so either, in his current... condition.

_God_.

"Come on, out," Dean said with a flicker of impatience. "You don't want to discuss this here, then let's hurry up and get somewhere where you'll actually fill me in."

Sam levered himself out of the driving seat and walked round to collapse in the passenger seat. Dean shot a glance at him and pulled back out onto the road.

The fifteen-minute journey to Wisconsin Rapids, plus the ten minutes it took Dean to locate and check them into a cheap motel, seemed at once interminably long and alarmingly short to Sam. By the time he and Dean were sitting facing each other on the room's beds, Sam still had no idea where to start explaining things. But it was clear that Dean wasn't about to let him put it off any longer.

He took a deep, shaking breath and started intently at his hands, pressed against his knees. Dean's gaze was burning into his forehead. "Okay. Okay. Dean, Celia got you. She must have. You've... you've forgotten things. Can you think when she might have gotten to you?"

"What have I forgotten?" Dean asked quietly.

"I guess she got to you when you were in the house the second night, before I salted and burned the bones," Sam said, a little wildly. "Though - though maybe she got to you for a few minutes the first night, too; you took too long to come when I yelled, and you asked me to drive, and you got lost the next   
day -"

"Sam," Dean cut him off, voice barely above a whisper.

Sam took another deep breath. Figuring out exactly when Celia had got to Dean wasn't going to change the situation. It might postpone what he was going to have to tell Dean by another few minutes, but it wouldn't save him from having to do so.

"Okay. Okay, I'm sorry, I know, I just... God, Dean." He rubbed one hand across his face and realised there was just no good way to do this, no way he could ease the blow. "You said - in the car -"

"I said we should carry on looking for Dad."

Sam glanced up and immediately wished he hadn't. Dean met his gaze, his entire body rigid and _waiting_ for the blow, and god, this wasn't fair, it wasn't _right_ that Dean should have to go through this all over again.

"Tell me, Sammy," Dean said, his voice low and rough. "Just tell me. Please, Sammy."

"Dad's dead, Dean."

The silence stretched and twisted. Dean was staring at him, peering into his eyes as if hoping that, if he stared long enough, looked deep enough, he'd find some clue that he'd misunderstood, that Sam was mistaken, that it wasn't true. Sam forced himself to meet Dean's eyes, although it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

A long, long few moments later, Dean's gaze shifted to the wall behind Sam, then the ceiling, and finally the bed he was sitting on. Sam watched how rigidly he held himself, the faint tremble in his fingers, and _wished _that he could reach out and hold his brother together. But he knew that one touch right now would either send Dean running or shatter him into pieces, so all he could do was shift forward very subtly so their knees brushed together.

Sam swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and kept talking, because he knew Dean couldn't, not yet. "It happened in November. He, um, he was captured by some demons, and we got him back, but it turned out that the demon, the one that..." Oh god, how much had Dean forgotten? Did he even remember the demon? "It had possessed him. We forced it out, and we were driving to the hospital when... when we were hit by a truck. Dad, um, he, uh, he seemed okay, mostly, for a while, but one day he just... he just collapsed."

Silence again. Sam wished he knew what to say. He felt almost like he was deceiving his brother by not telling him all the circumstances - _You were in a coma, and then you woke up and the Colt was gone and Dad was dead, Dean; he loved you enough to cut a deal with the demon for your life _\- but he couldn't. Regardless of what kind of liar that made him, Sam just couldn't do it. The memory of Dean, his cocky, confident big brother, sitting on the Impala's hood with tears coursing down his face - _What's dead should stay dead_ \- was still too fresh in his mind, if not in Dean's. He couldn't put Dean through that again. Not even if that made him as bad as Celia.

The silence stretched on, but Sam couldn't think of anything to say or do except sit there, his knees brushing lightly against his brother's, and wait for Dean to process it all.

Finally, Dean cleared his throat, then cleared it again. "I, uh." He swallowed hard and took a deep breath, but didn't look up to meet Sam's eyes. His hands were clenched around the quilt. "I remember the car crash. And... and the possession. Bits of it, anyway. Don't really remember the hospital. Or... well, obviously."

Sam nodded jerkily. He didn't have the first clue what to say.

The silence returned, until finally Dean stood up. Sam had a moment to panic that this was Dean running, but Dean merely paced from one side of the room to the other, turned and paced back again, the fingers of one hand pressed to his lips as he moved. Sam watched until he almost felt dizzy, but didn't try to convince Dean to stop. He couldn't really begin to imagine what his brother had to be feeling.

"So," Dean said finally, not pausing in his pacing. His voice _almost_ sounded normal, and seriously, Sam wondered, how the hell did he even _do _that? "How do we go about finding out if I've... forgotten anything else? And how are we going to get my memories back?"

Sam took a deep breath and seized on the questions like a life raft, concentrating on them. "I guess we could talk about... things. The big things. Maybe... maybe Celia was trying to remove memories she thought were traumatic -" God, he couldn't even look at Dean while saying that. "- so, I guess we could see if you remember that kind of thing. And maybe the memories will come back by themselves now we've salted and burned her. Your mind's probably still just recovering. You might be back to normal by tomorrow."

"Normal," Dean said without inflection. "Yeah."

He sank back down onto the bed opposite Sam and scrubbed his hands over his face, a gesture of exhaustion and stress and bone-deep grief that Sam had seen so rarely from him until the past few months. "Okay." His voice was steady, but his eyes darted anywhere but towards Sam's gaze. "So. Potentially traumatic experiences, huh? Great." His lips twitched into a smile that had nothing to do with mirth.

Sam's mouth twisted. "Yeah. God. Okay." He took a deep breath and tried to think logically. "Right. More recent stuff first, I guess. Before the whole, um... before all of that happened. Do you remember Chicago? And Meg?"

"I think so," Dean said slowly, then made a sound that wasn't really a laugh at all. "It's kind of difficult to remember whether I've forgotten something, you know?" He made a slight chopping motion with his hand, dismissing that question before Sam could even think of replying. "I remember Meg using us as bait. And the daevas. And... and Dad."

His voice hardly cracked at all, Sam noted, almost disbelievingly.

"Okay, sounds like you remember all of that," Sam said, trying to sound unaffected. "What about when, um, okay, do you remember Roy LeGrange?"

"The faith healer," Dean said quietly. "With the trapped Reaper. When my heart was fucked up."

"Okay," Sam said, and pressed on.

Both questions and answers gradually became shorter and shorter, devolving into a kind of shorthand that only worked because of how well they knew each other. By the end, Sam was down to single words, and Dean was mostly just nodding in response.

By lunchtime, they were both exhausted and depressed, but Dean didn't appear to be missing anything else particularly vital.

"How about some lunch?" Sam suggested finally, as the silence began to grow oppressive again.

Dean nodded without any real enthusiasm and followed him out of the room.

~*~

The day seemed interminably long. Dean was uncharacteristically silent, and Sam was trying not to push him. It wasn't as if he didn't know what was going on with his brother, for once, but Sam really had no idea what to say or do to help. The inactivity was wearing on them both, but an unspoken agreement had been reached that they couldn't afford to get back on the road yet. Neither wanted to head back to Marshfield, but there was no point in driving in the opposite direction in case it turned out that they needed to go back and do something else with Celia Mason's bones.

Sam was desperately hoping that Dean would wake up the next morning with his memories restored.

In the meantime, they were spending the evening in their motel room, neither feeling up to facing a bar and the company of other people. Dean was lying on his bed, ostensibly watching TV but in fact staring blankly at the ceiling. Sam was sitting at the tiny fold-out table next to the room's only window, looking through their father's journal for information about ghosts and other phenomena that might cause memory loss. Without a great deal of success. Every so often another memory would occur to him and he would ask Dean if he recalled it. So far, Dean always had.

"Do you remember the harpies back when you were, what, twenty?"

"Nineteen. Yeah, I remember you almost getting yourself fucking kill-" Dean broke off abruptly.

There was an uneasy pause, then Dean swallowed hard and went on. "Still got that scar on my forearm." He was absently tracing the faint scar with one finger as he spoke, though Sam suspected it was mostly an excuse not to look up at him.

That did give him an idea, though. "What about your other scars?"

Dean did look up at that. "What about 'em?"

"Do you remember them all? How you got them?"

Dean stared at him for a moment, and Sam gave a half-shrug, as if to say something like _Hey, it was just a thought_, or maybe _Sometimes physical scars and mental ones go together_. Finally Dean shrugged too, and glanced away, nodding.

"Well. This little one on my hand here's from when my knife slipped, back when I was first learning how to use one. This line on my other palm was that fucking necromancer in Oregon, would have probably ripped my throat open if I hadn't got my hand up fast enough. I've got a few faint marks around my wrists from being tied up - this one right here was from that creepy cannibal family, remember them? This one you can barely see any more, but it was years ago, that witch when I was thirteen. And this one..."

Dean trailed off, and Sam's gaze sharpened. "What about that one?"

Dean was tracing the tiny mark on his wrist. "I don't..." He shook his head slowly. "I don't remember how I got this one. I mean, logically, it looks like the others, like I got it from being tied up, but... I don't remember."

Sam swallowed and nodded, then set down the journal and crossed the room to sit down beside his brother. Dean shifted over wordlessly to make room for him, and proffered his wrist for examination. Sam stared at the scar, then reached out to trace it lightly. Dean stayed very still, watching him.

"This one I think you got right before... right before I left for Stanford. There were two rokurokubi, and they, um, they got you for a while. It took a day or two for Dad and I to bust you out."

Dean stared down at the scar as if seeing it for the first time. "I don't remember that at all." He laughed shortly, a sound devoid of all amusement. "I guess that probably means it was particularly memorable, for all the wrong reasons."

Sam bit his lip. "I guess so. You never... never really talked about it, what happened while they had you."

"I remember all the others, that I've noticed so far, anyway," Dean said after a moment. "Except the one on the back of my neck. Care to fill me in on that one?"

Sam frowned. "You have a scar on the back of your neck?"

Dean shrugged, a kind of tense resignation in the movement. "I only caught a glimpse of it in the mirror, but I think it's there. I kind of remember having the scar, if you know what I mean, even though I don't remember getting it."

"Can I see?" Sam asked, and somewhat to his surprise, Dean twisted around slightly and lowered his head, exposing the back of his neck to the light.

The scar was faint, but it was there. It was hard to see, running right along Dean's hairline, which was probably why Sam had never noticed it before. He stared at it, racking his brains for something that might have caused it, but he had nothing.

Dean turned back. "So you don't remember it either, huh?"

Sam sank back against the headboard and shook his head. "Sorry, dude. I didn't even know about that one. I've no idea when you might have got it, even." He grimaced. He couldn't help but feel like he'd let his brother down in some obscure way.

Dean shrugged awkwardly. "No big deal. It's probably nothing."

They both knew damn well that if it had been nothing, it wouldn't be missing from his memory now, but neither said anything.

"Well," Sam said, bumping shoulders with Dean companionably, "it might all be over tomorrow anyway. If salting and burning her did the trick, you might remember everything in the morning. Or more, at least, and then we can assume that it'll all come back to you gradually."

Dean smiled faintly. "I guess we'll see in the morning, then. Shift your lazy ass off my bed, Sam, I think I'm gonna grab some sleep now. Especially if you're going to do your alarm clock impression at some ridiculous hour again."

The light-heartedness was forced, and they both knew it, but right now Sam would take what he could get. "Whatever, man. Don't let me hold you back from your beauty sleep; we both know you need it far more than me, after all."

Dean flipped him off without rancour and headed for the bathroom, and Sam got up and started getting ready for bed himself, still lost in thought.

God, he hoped Dean's memory would be back in the morning.

~*~

Sam slept restlessly, haunted by confused, half-forgotten nightmares, startling awake again and again to look over at Dean in the other bed, lying with one hand tucked beneath the pillow where his knife was hidden.

Dean didn't stir, not once, and Sam genuinely didn't know whether his brother was lying there faking it or sleeping like the dead.

When daylight slowly began filtering through the curtains and under the door, Sam gave up on trying to sleep and sat up. He watched Dean for a moment, then debated whether to go fetch coffee or not. On the one hand, both he and Dean would really need coffee this morning, regardless of which way things went. On the other hand, whether Dean's memories had returned this morning or not, Sam really didn't like the idea of not being there when he woke up.

He wavered over the decision for a moment before deciding that the longer he waited, the greater the chance that Dean would wake up while he was gone. It shouldn't take him long to fetch coffee and something to eat, and it was still early. If he was quick, he could get back in time.

Still...

Mentally castigating himself for being such a girl - oh, if Dean were awake, he'd have _such _a field day with this, he'd be bringing it up for _years_ \- Sam grabbed a pen and scribbled "FETCHING YOU YOUR OH-SO-MANLY COFFEE" on a piece of paper and left it on the small set of drawers between the beds.

Now he really did have to hope he got back before Dean woke up, if only so he could steal the note back and dispose of it before Dean ever got wind of its existence.

Alas, it was not to be. When Sam slipped back into the room twenty minutes later, Dean was sitting up and leaning against the headboard, turning the piece of paper over and over in his hands, staring at or through it very intently. As Sam walked in, though, Dean looked up sharply and then grinned broadly at him.

"Leaving me love letters now, Sammy? I'm touched, really."

"Oh, shut up, asshole," Sam groaned, shutting the door behind him. "See if I ever leave a note telling you where I've gone again."

Something flickered across Dean's expression, too fast for Sam to identify, but then Dean was grinning again. "So where's my manly coffee, then, bitch? You better not have put any of that girly shit in it, I'm telling you."

"Oooooh, you're so tough, Dean," Sam mocked, but passed across the right cup. As a general rule, he didn't fuck with Dean's coffee until the very advanced stages of a prank war, and today definitely wasn't the time for it anyway. He could feel his amusement drain away at the thought, and he sat down halfway along Dean's bed, sipping at his own coffee. Dean peeled the lid off his, and they sat together in silence for a moment.

Sam wanted to ask, could feel the words pressing against his lips, but forced himself to stay quiet and let Dean speak when he was ready. Part of him was arguing that the very fact that Dean hadn't said anything yet had certain implications, but he tried to ignore that thought. Dean would tell him when he was ready.

"It hasn't got better."

Sam looked up abruptly from his coffee. Dean was staring down into his own cup as if it held all the answers he was missing.

"You don't remember any of the things you'd forgotten yesterday? Like... like Dad?"

Dean shook his head slowly.

There was silence for a moment, then Sam said, a little wildly, "Well, okay. Maybe it'll just take time, you know?   
We'll -"

"I don't think we've got that much time, Sammy." Dean's voice was suddenly weary. "I don't think time's gonna help. It..." Sam stared as Dean fumbled for words. "I think it's getting worse."

"...Worse?" Sam asked cautiously, dreading the answer.

In response, Dean took one hand off his coffee cup and turned it palm up, showing the faint scar which ran across it. "I remember us talking about this scar last night. I remember what I said - necromancer, Oregon, almost took my throat out - but I don't... I don't remember it happening any more. I did last night. I must have, right? I said I did. Now all I can remember is what I said. I don't remember it, Sammy."

Sam stared at the scar, then at Dean's downturned face.

"So I don't think just waiting and hoping for the best is gonna work this time, Sam," Dean said after a moment. "It's getting worse, not better. This carries on..."

He trailed off, and Sam nodded jerkily, turning his head to stare at the wall. This... God. _God._

"Okay," he said shakily. "Okay, then. We, um, we need to do some research. See if we can find out more about ghosts that have this kind of effect, and ways to reverse it. We'll find it, Dean."

Dean glanced up from his coffee at last and met his eyes for a moment before looking away. "Yeah."

Sam wondered which of them sounded the least convincing.

~*~

Finding decent information on the subject proved to be difficult.

"Stands to reason," Dean pointed out. "How are you meant to remember running into something that takes away your memories? If the thing's got any sense, it'll erase any memory you have of it, too. Like a freaky kind of camouflage."

Sam sighed. "Okay, sure, but there's still got to be some way to find out about this."

Dean didn't answer, simply focused back on his own computer screen.

They had wound up at the library. Sam had eyed the signs for wireless internet access with ill-disguised longing: he would have much preferred for them to hole up in a quiet corner together where they stood a better chance of not being overheard. They _really _needed to get a new laptop. As soon as they got this sorted out - and they _would_, Sam refused to even countenance the idea that they might not - he would talk to Dean about it. For now, they had set up shop in front of two of the library's thirteen internet-linked computers. But they were getting nowhere fast.

A moment or two later, Dean shook his head and pushed back from the computer. "Look, you carry on here, all right? If there's anything to find online, you're the one who's going to track it down. I'm gonna find somewhere a bit more out of the way and look through the journal."

Sam wanted to protest for a moment - he didn't exactly like the idea of Dean being out of sight or out of reach right now, for reasons he chose not to examine too closely - but he simply met Dean's eyes and nodded slowly. "Okay, sure."

He bit his lip and watched Dean vanish between the bookshelves, then forced himself to concentrate on the computer screen.

~*~

Dean headed through the stacks. The destination he had in mind was one of the armchairs set against the walls, boxed in among the shelves. That way no one would be able to sneak up on him or, more importantly, see the journal. He didn't like other people seeing it, especially now that -

He swallowed hard. That thought kept sneaking up on him, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it.

_"Dad's dead, Dean."_

Fuck. He'd been trying to focus on the research, on finding a way to reverse what was happening to him, but he couldn't shut this out entirely. He didn't know what to do or think about it. His father was dead. _Dead_. And Dean couldn't even remember it, how it all went down, except for the sketchy outline Sammy had given him.

There were not even words for how fucked up this all was.

He reached the armchair and collapsed onto it with relief. He felt more at ease here, in a shadowy corner away from all the normal people walking around in the brightly lit centre of the library. At least here he could see them coming.

Dean stared at the journal, running one hand absently over the cover. He'd never really consciously thought about it, but part of him had always assumed that one day they would give their father back his journal. Or that one day Dad would ask for it. It hadn't happened in Chicago - and he couldn't help but feel a touch of relief that he could at least still remember Chicago and what had happened there - but given how badly things had gone there, it wasn't surprising. They hadn't even had time. And then when they'd all met up again - and those memories were hazier, before they just cut off entirely - things had moved too fast, and they'd been hunting together, as a family again, so there hadn't been a need to give the journal back.

And now they never would.

"Stupid," Dean muttered aloud to himself, blinking hard to ease the ache in his eyes. "Stupid. _Focus_. Do the job."

He opened the journal and tried to concentrate, skim-reading through it looking for information that might be relevant. But there were so many things he didn't know, or no longer knew. Before, he'd been able to scan the first few lines of an entry and immediately remember the hunt involved, what it turned out to be, how they'd killed it, and a thousand other details. He'd been able to glance at a page of the journal, and know at once whether it was relevant or not. Now...

Now, he couldn't remember a lot of those hunts. He had to read the entire entry on them to determine whether they were relevant to his current predicament or not. This journal detailed most of his life, and it remembered more about the things that had happened to him than he did.

"Sitting here bitching about it isn't helping you sort it, moron," he muttered to himself.

Sam coughed slightly, and Dean almost jumped out of his chair. God_damnit_, one of the reasons he'd sat there was so that no one could sneak up on him, and he'd gone and got so caught up in moping like a girl that he hadn't even noticed Sam approaching.

"Talking to yourself, Dean?" Sam asked, teasing, but gently, and Dean knew the difference and couldn't decide whether he hated it or was grateful. "You know what they say."

"Shut up, maybe? 'Sides, dude, I'm _way _beyond the first sign," Dean said as airily as he could. In truth, the whole talking-to-himself thing was, if not exactly a touchy subject, one he preferred not to be called on, so he changed the topic. "Dig up anything?"

Sam sighed, the teasing smile fading from his face. "Well. Lots of cultures have myths and superstitions about memory loss, and there are some tales of 'memory eaters' and that sort of thing. I didn't find anything too specific, but I think that's a good sign that we may be able to find some kind of ritual to help counteract the effects. Probably not online, though. We should start calling our contacts, I guess, see if any of them can suggest anything." He nodded at the book still open on Dean's knees. "You have any luck at all?"

Dean cleared his throat and glanced down, shaking his head. "No. No, nothing so far." He could feel Sam's eyes on him, measuring, and refused to look up.

"Okay," Sam said softly. "What do you say we get out of here and scare up something to eat? Then we can start calling people this afternoon."

"Yeah," Dean said quietly. Then, "Yeah," more definitely, and he shut the journal with a snap and jumped to his feet. "Let's get out of here before your research addiction kicks back in and I'm trapped here with you for the rest of the day while you get your fix. Again."

Sam rolled his eyes, grinning, and Dean brushed close against him as he walked back through the bookshelves.

~*~

The afternoon passed horribly slowly. They split their list of contacts and slowly worked their way through them. Some people couldn't be reached. Others were unable to help them. One or two offered to do some digging around in their own books and promised to call back if they found something.

Sam hated it. He knew he was growing more irritable and on edge by the moment, but this was reminding him far too vividly of the days he'd spent calling every contact his family had ever had when Dean had been sick and in hospital after his heart attack. He remembered those days only as a dark spiral of panic and denial. He never wanted to go through that again.

He couldn't believe how well Dean seemed to be holding up. Well, strike that - this was Dean, after all, and Sam had watched him crack funeral jokes on his death bed. So he could believe it. But it never ceased to take his breath away, every time. He didn't doubt for a moment that it was mostly a mask for whatever the hell Dean was feeling underneath, but he wished he knew to what extent it was just a facade this time. You couldn't always be certain with Dean.

Bobby was their most encouraging lead. Although demons were his speciality, he had a lot of rare books on a wide range of subjects, and thought that one or two of them might contain something helpful. He promised to call back once he'd done some research, and Sam tried not to let himself get his hopes up too high as he hung up the phone.

"Bobby thinks there might be something in one of his books. He's going to call back."

Dean glanced up from where he was perched on one of the beds, but simply nodded. Sam supposed that he probably wasn't allowing himself to be too optimistic either.

The silence stretched out for a long moment before Dean nodded, as if confirming something to himself, and asked, "So, we done for now?"

Sam tilted his head in query. "I guess so. Why?"

A slow grin spread across Dean's face. "We should go get dinner. And then alcohol. Lots and _lots _of alcohol."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Not in the slightest, Sammy. There are times when drinking vast quantities of alcohol is the only sane option, and this is one of them." When it looked like Sam might be about to protest, Dean held up a hand. "We'll have our cell phones with us. There's nothing more we can do right now until one of our contacts finds something and calls us back, right? You need to unwind a bit, Sam. Come on, let's go."

~*~

The bar was loud and busy, but hadn't yet reached the point of being rowdy. Sam watched Dean tilt his head back and finish his third beer, then set the bottle down on their table with a hard _clink_ before heading to the bar for a fresh round, not bothering to ask Sam whether or not he wanted one.

Sam sipped his own beer and kept his eyes on Dean's back as he wove through the crowd. He'd been half-expecting Dean to spend the evening chatting up one of the barmaids - there was a pretty brunette who'd smiled at his brother real wide, and normally Dean would have swooped in for the kill - then to disappear and not return to their hotel room until the small hours of the morning. But so far, Dean had largely seemed content to sit and drink with Sam.

It wasn't really all that much of a surprise, Sam reflected, still watching his brother's back. Dean hadn't been chasing women at all since their father's death, and had been limiting himself to smiles tinged with irony whenever a woman did her best to flirt with him. Still, Sam had wondered whether the desire for that kind of distraction was perhaps the motivation behind Dean's sudden determination that they both go out.

He smiled slightly in acknowledgement as Dean returned and pushed a fresh bottle of beer across the table to him. They clinked their bottles together wordlessly and Dean sat back, raising his bottle to his lips and glancing around the bar idly.

"So," Sam said, and stopped, realising he hadn't a clue what it was he wanted to say, except possibly "Are you doing okay?" and he wasn't so drunk as to think that was a good idea.

Dean was giving him a weird look, then he suddenly grinned, blindingly bright. "Dude, you gotta be kidding me. You're drunk already?"

"I am _not_ drunk!" Sam said indignantly. "This is only my fourth beer, for Christ's sake!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Lightweight," Dean mocked. "You up for a game of pool, or are you too far gone to aim straight?"

Sam set his beer down hard. "Oh, you are _so _going down for that."

Dean laughed, an honest-to-god laugh, and Sam couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face. "Bring it on, bitch."

And okay, maybe Sam was slightly drunker than he'd realised, because Dean beat him at three straight games in a row, and surely Sam wasn't _that_ out of practice, even if Dean did more pool hustling than him. Not that it really mattered who was winning - well, except for the part where Dean was going to be gloating for _days_ \- because they were actually having fun for once, and Sam could feel himself relax for what felt like the first time in months as they clung to the pool table to hold themselves up while they laughed, and Dean did hilariously stupid things to distract Sam while he was taking a shot.

They staggered back to the motel together, still laughing, and Sam was asleep the moment he hit his bed.

~*~

Dean couldn't help but laugh at the sight of his lightweight brother sprawled across the bed and already out like a light. He dug through his pockets until he finally found his cell phone - all right, so he wasn't stone-cold sober either, he could admit it - and then snapped a photo of Sam's slack-jawed face. He laughed some more as he put the phone away again, then carefully started to take Sam's shoes off, because he wasn't a complete bastard. He guessed he owed Sam that much for sticking around and drinking with him all night. It had been a good distraction, though, had stopped them from dwelling on too many depressing things that they were powerless to do anything about for the moment, and Sam had seemed to enjoy himself too, so Dean didn't feel too guilty about dragging him out. Sam really did need to learn to chill the hell out sometimes.

He contemplated trying to drag the sheets out from underneath Sam and pull them over him, but immediately abandoned that as a bad idea and dug a spare blanket out of the closet instead. Sam didn't stir as Dean spread the blanket over him, and Dean took the opportunity to study his brother properly for a moment without being called on it.

Then he started getting ready for bed, but the smile slowly faded from his face, and he stopped short as he was about to switch off the light.

The problem with distractions was that they always wore off, and usually sooner rather than later. Dean had been trying to distract himself from a hell of a lot of things, the fact that his father was dead not least among them, but the main thing he'd been trying to forg- no, _distract_ himself from was what was happening to him.

He'd dealt with some fairly freaky shit before - even if he couldn't remember half of it right now - but this was seriously fucked up even by his standards. He could feel the blank spots in his memory slowly spreading, all the time. It was bad enough when he was awake. Waking up that morning and realising how much it felt like he'd lost overnight had been pretty terrifying. The thought of going to sleep again held no appeal whatsoever, despite how tired he was.

Agonising over what-ifs and might-have-beens was more Sam's gig, but since Sam was sleeping the sleep of the lightweight baby brother right then, Dean figured he wasn't going to get too jealous of his role. Besides, Sam didn't need to know that this was freaking him out. Just a little.

Because what would happen if they couldn't find a way to reverse the process? Oh, their nice little theory that Celia had been going after traumatic memories would be hugely comforting, were it not for the fact that Celia was _gone_, bones salted and burned, and so was no longer in control of whatever the hell was going on. Not to mention the fact that Dean had a sneaking suspicion Celia would have considered most of his life to be traumatic, whether he agreed with her or not.

He didn't think this had happened to the other people Celia had come into contact with. Caleb might not have remembered her or the house, but Dean was pretty certain he'd have heard if Caleb had forgotten about, say, hunting or half of his goddamn past. No, in Caleb's case it had been limited. And Dean hadn't had the impression that Donna or Jenny were going through this kind of thing either. It was just him. Which wasn't that surprising, really: Sam had thought that Celia had probably been messing with Dean when Sam had salted and burned her bones. Sometimes spirits went a bit crazy when they felt that happening - lashing out in desperation, trying to take people with them, that sort of thing. Somehow Celia had gotten her claws into his mind and turbo-charged the whole memory-loss thing, and really, it just wasn't cool at all.

Because if they couldn't find a way to reverse the process, there was no way of knowing at what point it would stop. _If_ it would stop. And a damn lot of good he'd be to Sammy then. He wouldn't be able to watch his back; wouldn't be able to do much of anything, really. He imagined it would be kind of like dying. His body would still be alive, but all the things that made him _him_, the billions of tiny events and choices and moments that had shaped him into the person he was, they would all be lost. He wouldn't be Dean any more, even if he managed to remember the name.

Dean shook his head, suddenly furious with himself, and snapped off the light. There was no call for panicking like that. They would find a solution. That was what they did. If the information was out there somewhere, Sam would dig it up. Dean had faith in that. They'd faced creepy shit before and come through it. This would be no different.

_But..._

Very slowly, Dean sat up again and turned the light back on. Then, moving deliberately, he looked around for some paper and a pen, finally coming up with the note Sam had left him that morning, which he'd tucked into his pocket. He stared for a long moment at Sam's handwriting, then slowly turned the piece of paper over.

_Just in case._

But the question was, how the hell did you boil everything you were, everything you knew, down to something that would fit on one tiny piece of paper?

Dean sucked on the lid of his pen, lost in thought. Across on the other bed, Sam made a quiet snuffling sound and shifted a little in his sleep. Dean grinned, watching him, and wrote "Sam" down at the top of the piece of paper.

He stared down at what he'd written, and felt his smile fade away. The idea of needing a reminder of who Sam was, of anything about Sam, was... ludicrous. Terrifying. The thought of trying to reduce everything they were and all that was between them to mere words, stark on the page in front of him, just hurt.

But he had to try and capture at least part of it. Just in case.

He chewed on the pen lid again for a few moments, then sighed and started writing.

~*~

Sam was not about to admit that he felt anything even approaching hungover the next morning, but he couldn't deny that he wasn't feeling at his very best when he woke up still wearing his clothes from the day before, with a horrible taste in his mouth and eyes that didn't quite want to let him peel them open.

He managed to fight his way out of the horribly patterned blanket that Dean had presumably draped over him the previous night, because Sam certainly couldn't remember fetching it himself, and lurched to the bathroom to brush his teeth and have the hottest shower in living memory.

By the time he emerged, much later, he was feeling almost human again, and he tried to keep the noise down while he got dressed. Dean was still crashed out on his own bed, one hand tucked under the pillow where his knife was hidden, the other curled in front of his face. Sam grinned, half-tempted to take a picture with his cell phone, but decided against it. Although that did remind him to go back into the bathroom and double-check the mirror, just in case Dean had decided to take advantage of him passing out to draw on his face or anything. It wouldn't have been the first time.

The mirror reassured him that his face at least had been spared, and Sam grinned and shook his head at his reflection. He would chance going out to fetch coffee. Coffee would definitely help with his not-hangover.

He was slightly surprised that Dean wasn't already awake when he returned, but the sound of the door closing did the trick, and Sam saw Dean go for his knife and then relax as he realised it was only Sam.

"Hey," Sam said, "I come bearing coffee. How you feeling this morning?"

Dean accepted the proffered cup of coffee and took a gulp. "You mean in terms of how hungover I am, how much more I've forgotten, or what?"

Sam grimaced. "Let's say all of the above."

"In that case, I bet I'm not nearly as hungover as you, lightweight. You were out before you even hit the bed, dude."

"Yeah, yeah," Sam said dismissively. "Whatever, Dean. And the rest of it?"

Dean glanced away and took another gulp of his coffee. "Yeah, well. What can I say, Sam? It's not like I can start listing all the things I've forgotten since last night, you know. But... yeah. Pretty sure I'm missing more."

Sam took a deep breath and released it again. "Okay. Okay. After breakfast we'll try calling people again, see if any of them have come up with anything. Okay?"

"Might as well," Dean muttered, still staring blankly at his coffee; then he made a visible effort to snap out of it. "You better not have used up all the hot water, princess, because I could really use a hot shower right about now."

"Only one way to find out, coward," Sam said nonchalantly, waving grandly towards the tiny bathroom.

Dean slid out of bed, coffee cup still clutched protectively in his hand. "You totally have, haven't you, you little brat?"

Sam put on his best poker face and sipped at his coffee, blinking innocently at his brother.

"I will seriously fuck your shit up," Dean warned, heading for the bathroom and taking his coffee with him.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam scoffed, settling down on the chair next to the window with his coffee and their father's journal.

"I mean it!" Dean called back over his shoulder, before the bathroom door shut with a _snick_.

Sam grinned and listened for his brother's reaction when he turned the shower on.

~*~

"Bobby? This is Sam Winchester."

Dean glanced up and watched as Sam switched hand, cradling his cell phone to his ear. He was staring out of the diner's window, unseeing, focused on his conversation.

They had stayed at the diner even after they'd finished their breakfast. Neither had particularly wanted to return to the motel room again while they called back everyone who might have stumbled across a lead since they'd spoken the previous day. At least the diner had enough other people to serve as a vague distraction, plus free refills of semi-decent coffee.

Dean refocused on their father's journal, carefully turning the page. He was leaving Sam to do the actual calling; he would have felt weirdly awkward talking to their contacts about this, now that they would possibly have to admit what this was all about. The previous day they had only told a trusted few the exact details of the situation, but he had still felt... exposed. Fortunately, he hadn't been forced to try to explain that to Sam - he would have preferred to suck it up and make the phone calls rather than admit to that - as his brother had just calmly suggested that he take another look through the journal while Sam made the calls.

He wasn't sure whether Sam had somehow picked up on his feelings or just thought it the most logical approach, but he hadn't been about to argue, and was doing his best to put it out of his mind.

So far, Sam had gone through three of the people they'd spoken to yesterday, the ones who had thought they might be able to find some useful information for them somewhere. So far, all three had drawn a blank. There had only been four people on their list, so Dean was doing his best to concentrate on the journal rather than Sam's conversation with Bobby. He wasn't doing too good a job of it, though.

"Really?" It was the tone of Sam's voice that snapped his attention back. He watched intently as Sam straightened out of his slumped position against the corner of the booth and sat up, grabbing his pen. "Tell me."

Dean bit the inside of his cheek and stamped down firmly on his hopes. He watched, motionless, as Sam scribbled notes.

The conversation lasted close to fifteen minutes, and Dean was about ready to start climbing the walls by the time Sam thanked Bobby profusely, promised to call back soon, and hung up. Sam exhaled sharply, sat back, and finally, finally, looked up to meet Dean's eyes.

There was a spark of fierce hope and determination in Sam's eyes that hadn't been there before, and Dean took what felt like his first deep breath in two days.

"Bobby thinks he's found something," Sam started, holding Dean's gaze. "It's not really his speciality, but he has some of Pastor Jim's old books, and... Well, he found a ritual he thinks might help. It'd be risky, though, Dean, really risky - we'd be going just on what's in the book, Bobby doesn't know anything about it, whether it would -"

"I'm doing it, Sammy," Dean said firmly, without glancing away. "If there's a chance, I'm doing it. Unless it calls for me to blow my brains out, there's no way it can be riskier than doing nothing at this stage."

Sam swallowed hard and looked away, glancing around the diner. Dean continued to stare at him, and Sam finally met his eyes again, tight-lipped. "Look, Dean, I know you're -"

"No," Dean interrupted. "No, Sammy. This is the only lead we've come up with. I know damn well how risky this is, and when you finally get around to telling me what the hell this ritual involves, I bet it will not sound like my idea of a good time, but we have got to do _something_, and I am not seeing any other options here."

Sam held his gaze for a long moment, then sighed and nodded. "Okay. Okay, Dean. I get it, okay? But - look, it has to be performed on the night of the new moon. That's, what, tomorrow night? So that gives us today and tomorrow to, to research it, try and figure out what we're doing."

"Tomorrow night?" Dean asked. He wasn't entirely sure which was strongest: his disappointment that they couldn't perform the ritual right then, or his relief that it wasn't further away. He slumped back against the booth.

"We wouldn't be able to do it tonight anyway," Sam said, "we'll need to pick up some supplies and make some preparations. So we might as well take the opportunity to do some research too. I'd feel better about this if we knew more about what we're doing."

His eyes were just a touch too understanding for Dean's comfort, so Dean forced a smirk. "Fine, research junkie. Let me at least pay the bill before you drag me back to your precious library."

~*~

Dean read over Sam's notes for the third time, frowning. "Well, it really _doesn't _sound like my idea of a good time, but I've got to say, Sam, the way you were acting in the diner, I was expecting worse."

Sam cast him an irritated glance. "I will remind you of that when your head starts rotating through 360 degrees, I swear."

Dean rolled his eyes and leaned forward for a better look at the website Sam was reading. "So, you're researching... what? The shit I have to take?"

"Yeah," Sam said quietly. "I don't think we'll be able to find much on what the effects of the ritual itself are, but the things you're going to have to ingest... that at least we can find out about." He gestured to the screen. "Check it out."

"Periwinkle," Dean read aloud. "Side-effects can include nausea, hair loss, a drop in blood pressure. Large doses can be poisonous. Not recommended for medicinal purposes. Sounds like fun."

"Like a laugh and a half," Sam agreed grimly, already clicking through links looking for more information. "Apparently there's been some initial evidence that it might help some people with Alzheimer's Disease. European doctors used it a lot in medieval times for memory-related problems, too."

"Well, at least that sounds vaguely promising," Dean muttered. "What else is there?"

"Blessed thistle," Sam said, running a new search. "Here we go. Well, 'memory improvement' is listed as one of the traditional uses people have ascribed to it. Possible side-effects... nausea and vomiting. 'May increase risk of bleeding'. It doesn't look quite as risky, though."

"'Do not use during pregnancy'," Dean read. "Well, that's one thing I don't have to worry about, at least."

Sam remained diplomatically silent on that one. "Pass me the list again." He checked through the remaining items that Dean would have to ingest and grimaced. "Well, I can't say I envy you, man. But it doesn't look like that stuff will kill you. Probably. It wouldn't surprise me if you're throwing up for a few days, though."

"Dude, I have to eat _thistle_. I'd say throwing up is a given," Dean said flatly. "But if there's any chance it'll reverse what's happening to me, I'm doing it. You think we're going to be able to get all this stuff around here?"

"I saw a herbalist's a few streets over," Sam offered. "I think we should be able to get it there. We've still got plenty of candles in the trunk, haven't we?"

"Far as I can recall, yeah," Dean said, half-joking, half-not.

Sam just _looked_ at him for a moment, and Dean braced himself for Sam to come out with something hideously girly, but all he said was "You ready to get out of here?"

"Yeah," Dean said, suddenly exhausted. "Yeah, I kind of am."

Sam said nothing more, just grabbed his notes together and waited for Dean to lead the way out of the library.

~*~

"You ready?"

Dean took a deep breath and accepted the cup Sam held out to him, staring down at the thick liquid.

He wouldn't deny that he was somewhat nervous. The previous night had been almost entirely sleepless: he'd spent a lot of time staring up blankly at the ceiling, going over the things he could remember, running through the things he'd written on his piece of paper, worrying away at the blank spots in his memory like he would the gap left by a missing tooth. Then he'd spent a few hours thinking through the details of the ritual, trying to recall every aspect.

The thought of going through with the ritual did make him nervous, no matter how obliviously foolhardy Sam might think him. Dean wasn't an idiot, and he was all too aware how stupid it was to mess with something like this without knowing _exactly_ what you were doing. And they didn't have a clue. Dean hated rituals whose ramifications he didn't fully understand. He had a hunch that at least one of his vanished memories dealt with how he'd learned that particular lesson. The memories might be gone, but the lesson wasn't; he was just going to ignore it anyway, because really, what choice did he have?

He couldn't carry on like this for much longer before he just lost it. He was losing his mind a piece at a time, and he didn't know what to do except clutch on to the most important pieces and try to hold it together. He'd kept his note in his pocket all day, and every time Sam was out of sight he'd dug it out and read it again and again, trying to burn the knowledge into his treacherous memory.

Yeah, he was more than slightly creeped out by the ritual they were about to perform, but not half as panicked as he was about the idea of it failing.

"Hate to break it to you, Dean, but I don't think you're going to be able to glare it into tasting better."

Sam's voice dragged Dean back out of his thoughts and he glanced up sharply, then forced a grin. "Hell, was worth a try." He raised the cup to his brother. "Cheers."

_Fuck_, but it tasted awful. Dean grimaced, tried to put everything they'd researched about the contents out of his head, and forced himself to pretend he was forcing down one of Sam's disgustingly girly coffees instead. Oh, god, he hadn't tasted anything this revolting since that time Sam had double-dared him to try some sushi -

\- and oh, man, he really couldn't think of that right now or he _would_ throw up, and he couldn't afford to do that until after the ritual. Ritual first, and then he could hurl to his stomach's content. Or more likely hurl up his stomach's contents.

He forced down the rest of it and closed his eyes while he got the urge to gag under control. He felt Sam take the cup away from him, but focused on breathing for several long moments before he opened his eyes again.

"Okay?" Sam asked, looking worried.

Dean nodded carefully. "Just so long as I don't have to drink anything like that ever again. Fuck."

Sam winced in sympathy. "But that should be the hard part over now for you. You get to sit there and concentrate on not throwing up while I deal with the incantations and stuff."

"Dude, that is going to be a harder part than you can imagine," Dean muttered. "How soon can we start?"

Sam shrugged. "Now, I guess. We might as well set everything up so we're ready when midnight comes. You need to come sit on the floor over here."

Dean stood up, and was slightly taken aback by the realisation that his balance was shot. "Whoa."

Sam was beside him in an instant, catching one arm to steady him. "Jesus, Dean, you okay? Come on -"

Dean was a little irritated, but also a little disoriented, so he cut his losses and let Sam guide him across to the space they'd cleared by shoving the beds against the walls. He sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged and pressing his hands against the floor to hold himself upright.

Sam crouched in front of him, and now he looked _really _worried. "You still with me?"

"Not going anywhere," Dean said quietly, smiling a little to reassure him. "Hey, least we know that stuff's doing something, right?"

"Right," Sam agreed, mouth quirking. "You think you can manage to stay upright while I set things up?"

Dean waved one hand airily, then replaced it hurriedly on the floor as the world tilted. "Get to chalking, bitch, I got things covered on the staying upright front."

Sam laughed quietly, but moved away. Dean could hear him setting up candles and chalking lines around Dean on the floor. The motel carpet was going to be a write-off, at this rate. Good thing the credit card wasn't in his name.

Some time later - he wasn't sure how long, time had started to go strange - he opened his eyes, blinking, wondering when he'd closed them. Sam was crouched down again, but at arm's length this time, outside the lines he'd chalked on the carpet. He was saying Dean's name, repeatedly.

"Sammy," Dean answered, surprised by the slight slur in his voice.

"Everything's set up," Sam said. "Lines are chalked, candles are in position. Doors are salted. It's almost midnight. You okay?"

"Still upright," Dean murmured. "Sam. Sammy. Listen to me. I hate to break it to you, but you're never gonna be Willow. I'm sorry, but you're just too tall, man."

That startled a laugh out of his brother, and Dean grinned broadly to himself. Long as he could make Sammy laugh like that, things couldn't be too bad.

"Thanks, I'll bear that in mind." Sam's smile faded and Dean sobered too. "You sure you want to do this, Dean? Still time to back out."

"After drinking that shit? No fucking way," Dean said as firmly as he could, considering he could barely see straight. "No, Sammy. No backing out. Need to do this. Need you to do this."

Sam nodded slowly. "Okay, Dean. Okay." And then he stood up and was out of Dean's line of sight.

Dean let his eyes slip shut, listening distractedly to the flare of candles being lit. There was a moment's pause, then he heard Sam draw in a deep breath and begin his incantation.

Sam was good at this kind of thing, Dean knew. He'd been performing exorcisms and reading incantations since he was a kid. Always the baby of the family, and reading the rituals had given him something useful but above all comparatively _safe_ to do while Dean and their father handled the more dangerous physical aspects of subduing whatever they were hunting. That had changed when Sam was older and could hold his own, of course, but it'd still been Sam who'd performed the incantations, more often than not. Sam was good at wrapping his tongue around whatever ancient language a ritual called for, at memorising line upon line if necessary, at keeping going no matter what was going on around him.

Sam could do this, and Dean trusted that. So he allowed himself to relax into the soothing, confident warmth of Sam's voice, and let the world ebb and flow around him.

Time had gone truly strange on him now. It felt a little like floating, surrounded by Sam's voice, the air shivering around him. The tension and power of the ritual built up slowly around him, making it difficult to breathe. Then it was building in him, moving slowly up through his body, and he gasped, head tilting back on his shoulders, and let the ritual take him.

For a long, endless moment, it kept building, past the point where he could make sense of what was happening to him, then suddenly everything seemed to stop and just _hold_, hanging breathless and motionless at the peak -

\- and then it was like a crashing wave, like an explosion, and Dean thought he probably cried out, but he couldn't hear anything over the roaring in his ears and the rushing in his head, memories flooding through him too fast to grasp, overwhelming him. A million memories danced before his eyes, things taken or suppressed, things half-forgotten or buried, things cherished or burned into him, all at once, all there, all immediate and bright and sharp, cutting into him like knives, and it built, confusing, dizzying, until -

\- white-out.

~*~

Sam had performed rituals many times before, carried out exorcisms and read incantations, had performed them with and on and for Dean. So he knew better than to let himself focus too closely on his brother and his reactions. They were committed to the ritual now, and the only way he could help Dean was to concentrate and complete it to the best of his ability. He didn't know precisely what would happen if he allowed the ritual to fall apart, but he was certain that finding out would be a very bad thing.

So he focused on the incantation and only allowed himself to watch out of the corner of his eye as Dean suddenly went rigid, head tipping back, a strangled gasp escaping him. When Dean cried out, Sam was hard-pressed to keep his voice steady, but it wasn't until Dean just _collapsed_, hitting the floor like a puppet whose strings had been snapped, that Sam almost lost it and lunged for his brother. Instead, Sam clenched a fist, feeling his nails dig into the palm so hard he'd have marks later, and forced himself to complete the incantation, trying not to unconsciously speed it up, because god only knew what effect that would have on Dean.

The three minutes it took to complete the ritual felt like an eternity, and Sam could barely take his eyes off his brother long enough to glance at his notes for the proper words. When he finally reached the end and the candles blew themselves out, Sam was across the chalk marks and kneeling at his brother's side before the notes he'd dropped had even hit the floor.

"Dean!"

Even though he could hear Dean gasping for breath, Sam's first reaction was to reach for his pulse, because he'd never quite forgotten going down into that basement where the rawhead had been lurking and seeing Dean collapsed on the floor, and finding nothing when he'd searched frantically for a pulse. Ever since then, Sam had been unable to break the habit of checking Dean's pulse every time his brother went down and didn't immediately get up and start cracking jokes.

Dean had never called him on that.

Sam's relief at feeling Dean's pulse was immediately overwhelmed by concern at how rapid it was. Dean's heart was _racing_, and Sam had never heard him fight for breath in quite that way unless they'd been sprinting flat-out for five miles with werewolves on their heels.

"Jesus, Dean. Can you hear me? Dean, it's done. Talk to me, man." Sam told himself firmly that he was not going to panic. All right, so he had no clue what the ritual had done to his brother, but Dean was alive and his heart was beating and he was breathing, and everything else they could deal with.

Dean didn't respond, gave no sign that he'd even heard, and Sam pressed a palm to Dean's cheek. "Hey. Hey, come on, man." God, it was too dark now that the candles had gone out, he couldn't see a goddamn thing. "How about we get you off the floor, huh? Okay, Dean? Come on, stay with me, bro."

Levering Dean up off the floor was easier said than done. Dean was... not unconscious, as far as Sam could judge, but completely out of it, no question. He was almost dead weight, and manhandling him onto the bed took a lot of work. Sam turned away for a moment to snap on the table lamp, and when he came back Dean was curled up on his side, huddled into a ball, and shaking all over.

_Shit_.

"Dean," Sam breathed, reaching out to touch Dean's forehead, an attempt to soothe that he would never dream of trying if Dean were even vaguely aware of his surroundings. His brother's forehead was clammy to the touch. "Hey, Dean. Just breathe. It's okay. Come on, I'm here, come back to me."

There was no reaction, and okay, maybe Sam was going to panic just a little bit after all. "Dean. Hey, you're starting to scare me a bit here." Sam was aware enough to have noticed that sometimes the idea of causing Sam pain or worry would get through to his brother when nothing else seemed to, and he wasn't above using that on occasion, for Dean's own good. Underhanded, perhaps, but it wasn't like it was a lie - seeing Dean curled up like this, watching him shake so violently, was terrifying.

Dean didn't respond at all and that, more than anything, convinced Sam that his brother was completely unaware of anything outside of whatever was going on inside his own head right then. Sam bit his lip, frowning, feeling utterly helpless. Finally, he went to the bathroom and soaked a cloth in cold water, then returned and pressed it gently to Dean's forehead. He wasn't sure whether it would help at all, but he had to at least try.

He sat at Dean's bedside for almost an hour, sometimes reaching out to touch his hand, his forehead, sometimes talking softly, soothing nonsense. Nothing seemed to have any effect. Eventually, Sam swallowed hard and got up to clean up the mess they'd made with the ritual. He scrubbed away the chalk marks and tossed the candles in the garbage, and resolved that if Dean was no better by morning, he would drag him to the hospital.

He watched Dean shake for a long time before his eyes slid closed against his will, and he dozed off in the chair beside Dean's bed.


	3. Chapter 3

_His father's face twisted into a heated sneer, gold glinting in his eyes as he looms too close._

Numb where he's bound to the tree, and the moment of shock and joy and relief when Sam suddenly appears.

Sammy holding his first hunting knife, curved and sharp, light glinting along the blade.

A storm of memories was flooding through him, each one sharp and bright and real. Dean ricocheted from one to another, no logic or sense to it, unable to get his bearings.

It seemed to go on forever, and Dean could do nothing but let the tide take him.

_Smoke all around and an acrid taste in his mouth, and he runs, cradling the baby tightly._

Working out the dents in the Impala's bodywork, slow and careful.

Fury and determination and grief in Sam's face as he says "Watch me."

Eventually the chaos in his mind dimmed enough for Dean to become tangentially aware that a world still existed outside of his suddenly overpowering memories. Slowly, he realised that he was lying down, curled up tightly around himself, and that every muscle in his body was protesting. Trying to straighten out proved to be a mistake, though, as the nausea hit him hard and fast, along with a memory of the shit he'd drunk for that ritual, vivid as if he were swallowing it that moment, and okay, he was going to throw up _right now_.

He lunged off the bed, and then nearly sprawled headlong on the floor as he tripped over something which the tiny part of his mind that was not preoccupied with the nausea or the memories identified as Sammy's stupidly long legs. But he would have to wait until some other time to figure out why Sammy's ridiculous legs were in his way, because otherwise he was going to be sick all over them.

He barely managed to reach the bathroom before his own legs gave way under him and he collapsed to the floor. Fortunately, it was a tiny bathroom, and he was able to just drag himself forward and bend across the toilet in time to throw up everything he'd eaten in living memory.

Memories of every time he'd ever been sick assaulted him, a chaotic jumble.

_Fourteen and stomach flu, his dad's hand against the back of his head._

First human corpse, and this isn't a monster, it's a person - was a person - and he throws up behind a tree.

Hungover beyond belief, and god, he hopes his father doesn't catch him like this.  
_  
_He retched and retched for what felt like forever, the memories swirling in his head, until finally he sank back, exhausted, and rested his head against the cold bathroom wall.

Gradually he became aware of something on the verge of his consciousness, and struggled to open his eyes.

Sammy was crouched in front of him, surprisingly close, with that expression of worry on his face that always made Dean want to break whatever was causing it. But he had a vague suspicion that was him, this time, and he was feeling plenty broken enough for the time being.

He rode out the tidal wave of memories that hit him when he looked at Sam, until he regained enough focus to realise that Sam was saying his name and holding out a glass of water.

Water. God. Yes.

Dean's hand was too shaky to hold the glass and Sam had to help him steady it while he sipped. Good as the water was, he was relieved to let Sam just take it away again.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was soft, and threaded through with the worry that Dean could never bear.

"Sammy," Dean answered, and was taken aback by how rough his voice sounded. But Sam was beaming at him, with that smile Dean didn't see enough of, so hey, things couldn't be too bad.

"How you feelin', man?" Sam asked finally.

Dean considered the question. "Like roadkill."

"Yeah, I'm kinda seeing that," Sam agreed. "Do you... I mean, are you remembering any more now?"

Dean couldn't help but laugh weakly, though every muscle in his body screamed in protest. "Jesus. Sam, you wouldn't even _believe _the kind of things I'm remembering right now."

Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"

All of a sudden Dean was exhausted, and the bathroom floor was looking awfully appealing. But he tried to focus on Sam's question. "Can remember everything, Sammy. _Everything_, you get me? Like, the name of every school we ever went to, and the look on your face when I baked you your first birthday cake, and the lotto numbers I read in this newspaper back when I was sixteen. _Everything_."

Sam was wide-eyed. "Jesus, Dean."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Sammy, you mind moving back a bit so I can crash here?"

"You're not sleeping on the bathroom floor, Dean," Sam said, a familiar note of exasperation entering his voice. "Come on, let me help."

Dean protested, but had shut up and conceded defeat by the time Sam had dragged him halfway back to his bed. He collapsed onto it and shut his eyes gratefully, wishing he could shut out the memories pounding through his head as easily.

He was vaguely aware of Sam saying "Get some sleep, Dean, we'll figure it out when you wake up", and then he was gone.

~*~

"What about that scar on your wrist?"

"You were right, it was the rokurokubi. They kept me tied up and I was fighting to get free. Got there in the end."

Despite Dean's assertion that he could now remember _everything_, a concept Sam was still trying to wrap his head around, Sam had suggested that they go through the specific things that they knew Dean had been unable to remember before, just to be certain that at least that problem had been rectified. Dean had not protested, and Sam suspected that even though he was trying to act casual, Dean was more shaken up by what had been happening to him than he would ever admit.

They had slept late, both exhausted by the night's events, and Sam hadn't woken until early afternoon. He'd had time to fetch coffee and food before Dean had even stirred. After a long shower and vast quantities of coffee, Dean had looked much more human than the previous night.

But Sam was well aware that his brother was far from back to normal, even if things were at least fucked up in a different way now. Dean was oddly distracted, getting lost in his own mind for alarmingly long periods of time. So far, it had twice taken Sam almost three minutes to snap Dean out of it.

"And the scar on the back of your neck, do you remember what caused it now?" Sam asked. He was trying to slowly work his way up to asking Dean how much he remembered about their father's death, and since he suspected Dean wouldn't react well to that, he was starting with less sensitive questions.

The way Dean's face just shut down, though, told him that he'd misjudged the sensitivity of this one. Sam could almost _see _Dean's barriers come slamming down.

"I remember," Dean said tersely. "I told you, Sam, I remember everything. You know, if you seriously plan to go through every single thing I'd forgotten, we're gonna be here for a hell of a long time."

Sam narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, then nodded slowly. "Okay, fine." He had a feeling that pushing Dean about the scar now would not be a wise move, but he filed it away in his mind to bring up again at a better time. "Just one last thing, then, and we'll move on, okay?" He hesitated for a moment, but they did have to be certain. "You remember what happened to Dad, now?"

All the colour drained from Dean's face, and Sam winced as Dean's eyes took on the glassy, inward-looking appearance that Sam was starting to associate with his brother being overwhelmed by memories.

"Dean?" he said softly, leaning forward. "Hey, Dean."

It was an agonisingly long minute before Dean suddenly blinked and refocused on Sam's face. He looked away immediately, but not before Sam caught a glimpse of the expression in his eyes.

"Dean?"

Dean cleared his throat. "Yeah." His voice was rough. "I remember. All of it."

Sam wondered a bit at that, but told himself not to overthink it - of course Dean was going to react strongly to those memories. Of course they were going to affect him. Both of them had still been struggling to deal with their father's death even before all of this had happened, and having those memories vanish and then return so violently was bound to hit Dean hard.

"Okay," Sam started, but Dean interrupted.

"Look, Sam, can we just... drop this for a while? I..." Dean rubbed at his face, looking suddenly exhausted again. "The memories aren't as bad now as they were last night. I think it's just going to take some time for them to fade back to normal, that's all."

Sam nodded. Dean was right: he definitely did seem better than he had in the middle of the night, although that wasn't necessarily saying much. Perhaps all he really needed was time and rest. And dragging up lots of old memories for him while he was unable to filter them out was probably not the kindest plan. "Sure, Dean. You know, maybe you should try to get some more sleep -"

"_No_," Dean said, more vehemently than Sam had expected, but then he cracked a grin and went on more casually, "Dude, it's only five o'clock, and I barely woke up a few hours ago. I don't think I could sleep right now."

Sam frowned slightly. "I think sleep would really help with the memories, though. And you still look pretty tired - you were awake most of the night. We still have some sleeping pills if you -"

"I said _no_, Sam," Dean said flatly. "In fact, I'm going stir-crazy in here. I want to get out of this motel room for a while."

Sam threw up his hands. "Okay, fine, whatever. God forbid you actually try and recover from what's happening to you. You want to go out? We'll go out. And if you pass out on the floor of some diner, I will leave you lying there, I swear."

"Whatever," Dean said, getting to his feet - somewhat unsteadily, to Sam's eye. "Come on if you're coming. I can't take this room one minute longer."

~*~

Dean had ordered coffee, lots of it, as soon as they'd arrived at the diner. The truth was that he _was _exhausted, and he suspected Sam was right, if he'd just lain down he'd have fallen asleep in an instant. But he really didn't want to go back to sleep until he had figured out what was going on with his dreams.

He hadn't remembered them until his memories had come flooding back the night before, and it was taking him a while to make sense of and reorder all those memories. Even before Celia had messed with his mind, he hadn't remembered more than fragments of his dreams. Hell, it wasn't like it was in any way unusual for him to be dreaming of some chick. Admittedly, those dreams didn't normally give him the weird feeling these dreams had, but he hadn't given it any more thought. So he was dreaming about some black-haired babe? Big deal.

Yeah. Right up until Sam had asked him what he remembered about his father's death, and it had all come crashing in at once: finding his own body lying in a hospital bed, seeing the indistinct shape hovering over him as the doctors tried to revive him, meeting black-haired Tessa and then realising who - what - she really was. The agonising choice she had offered him.

Her eyes suddenly glowing gold as the demon possessed her and threw him back into his body.

_God_. Dean rubbed at his forehead with one hand.

It wasn't as if he hadn't known before. He'd known damn well what his father had done, the deal he must have made and who - what - he'd made it with. He'd even said as much to Sam, said the words out loud, made them real. He'd known.

Only he hadn't, not really, not like he did now.

_Today's your lucky day, kid_.

"Hey."

Dean jumped slightly, caught off-guard, and met Sam's eyes across the diner booth. "What?"

Sam was looking concerned. "You all right? Your meal's getting cold."

His meal? Dean blinked down at the plate in front of him. The waitress must have brought it while he was distracted, and okay, it was a bad sign that he hadn't even noticed, so maybe Sam had a point.

"Just letting it cool," he muttered, and was grateful when Sam merely raised an eyebrow and refrained from calling him on his bullshit.

Dean took an absent bite of his burger and returned to his thoughts.

That his father had done that, had sacrificed his life - and to the demon, no less - to save Dean... There weren't even words for that. Dean would have given anything, now, to be able to go back and go with Tessa before his father could do it. If he hadn't fought so hard, resisted for so long...

He rubbed at his forehead again. _Face it, Dean. Admit it. Own up to your mistakes._ _If you hadn't fought so hard to live, Dad would still be alive. And he and Sam would still have the Colt._

_Okay. Now take a deep breath and move the fuck on, because crying over might-have-beens never changed a goddamn thing._

Dean tried to take his own advice, and even managed to choke down another bite of his burger.

So his weird-assed dreams recently, the ones he'd barely remembered, those had been his subconscious trying to remind him, Dean supposed. The fact that the dreams didn't match exactly with what he now remembered happening was probably irrelevant. Which meant that there was no reason why he should try to avoid sleeping.

He shoved his plate aside and wrapped his hands around his third mug of coffee instead.

"Aren't you going to eat that?" Sam asked, jerking his head towards Dean's abandoned burger.

"Nah," Dean said, aiming for casual, "I'm not that hungry." At Sam's look, he added, "Man, I can still taste that shit. It's gonna be a while before anything looks good, I'm telling you."

Sam pursed his lips. "Dean..."

Dean took another gulp of his coffee and refused to look at his brother.

Sam sighed in defeat. "Fine. Whatever."

There was a long silence, during which Sam concentrated on his meal and Dean drank his coffee and tried to cope with the memories that were swirling up in him again. It was their sharpness that bothered him most: memories shouldn't feel that real, that immediate. Not to mention that there were plenty of things he'd been happy not to think about.

The coffee was helping, though. The more awake he was, the easier it was to ride out the memories, even if he couldn't suppress them entirely. It seemed to be when he started getting tired that it became difficult to keep track of the difference between memory and reality.

He asked the waitress to bring him a refill.

It was Sam who eventually broke the silence. "We should call Bobby, let him know how it went. Warn him about the side-effects."

"Side-effects," Dean muttered under his breath, almost laughing, even though it wasn't amusing in the slightest. "It's not a side-effect, Sam. It's the effect. And I still say it's getting better."

"Getting better?" Sam repeated disbelievingly. "Dean, you were out of it for the entire night, and you've spent all of today staring off into space! You're not eating, you won't talk about it, you can't even keep track of what's going on around you! You call that getting better?"

Dean's hand tightened dangerously around his cup. "Compared to barely remembering a goddamn thing about my life yesterday, then yes, Sam, I do. You said yourself I was out of it right after the ritual; being a bit distracted now is nothing. I told you, it'll pass."

Sam's jaw clenched, but he took a deep breath, clearly forcing himself to calm down. "Look, either way, I promised we'd call Bobby and let him know how it went. Do you want to do it, or will I?"

Dean took a deep breath of his own. Truthfully, he really didn't feel up to talking to anyone other than Sam right now. On the other hand, he owed Bobby big time for everything he'd done for them over the past few months, let alone tracking down the ritual. "I'll do it."

He pulled out his cell phone and punched in Bobby's number from memory. "Bobby? This is Dean Winchester."

"Dean! Good to hear your voice. Did it work?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "Yeah, it did. Thanks, man, I really owe you."

"You run into any problems with it?" Bobby asked, and Dean was reminded yet again that Bobby was nobody's fool. "Rituals like that, seems like there's always some kinda catch."

Dean sighed. "If anything, it maybe worked a bit too well. I'm remembering all kinds of things, things I'd forgotten years ago. Everything. It's... Well. Should pass soon, I think."

"Everything?" Bobby repeated. "Damn."

"Yeah," Dean agreed.

There was silence on the line for a moment, then Bobby said, "Listen, Dean, I'm guessin' you may want to take a few days to recover, get your head back on straight, but after..."

Dean straightened unconsciously. "What's up, Bobby?"

Bobby sighed. "I'm not sure. But there's some weird stuff going on around here, and I'm thinkin' you boys would maybe find it interesting. Strange deaths." More softly, "Lotta kids been dying."

Dean met Sam's eyes across the table; although Sam could only hear his side of the conversation, he clearly knew something was wrong.

"We'll leave tonight."

Sam slowly set down his cup, staring at him.

Bobby sounded almost worried. "Dean, ain't no rush. Take a few days to recover -"

"I'm fine, Bobby," Dean bit out. "We'll leave tonight. See you soon." He hung up and tucked his cell phone away again.

Sam was still staring at him. "Dean? What's going on?"

"Bobby thinks there's something going on there we should look into," Dean said briefly. "Strange deaths. A lot of kids dying, he said."

Sam raised his eyebrows, waved one hand a little wildly. "And... what? We're just going to jump in the car and start driving? Now? _Tonight_?"

"Yes," Dean said curtly. "Or rather, I'm driving. You almost crashed my car, dude, if you think I'm letting you behind the wheel -"

His brother almost laughed in his face. "Oh, and you think you're safe to drive right now? You've barely been on the right planet today! You were out of it for hours, you've spent all evening brooding -"

"Oh, that's _rich_, Sam, that is _really _fucking rich coming from you," Dean snarled. He pulled out a couple of bills and threw them on the table, then he was on his feet and moving.

Sam was close behind him. "Damn it, Dean! Will you stop a moment?"

Dean slammed out of the diner and started down the street towards the motel. Sam finally grabbed his arm, forcing him to turn and stop. "Dean, for... Will you stop?!"

Dean stared at Sam's hand, clenched around his forearm, and then raised his gaze to Sam's face. But he didn't shake him off, and Sam went on.

"Jesus, Dean. I know how much you hate admitting it, but you are not okay right now. If you go rushing into something dangerous right away without giving yourself a chance to recover first, you're going to get hurt, Dean. I -" He sighed heavily, looking suddenly exhausted, and released his grip on Dean's arm. "Look, couldn't we at least stay here tonight? Come on, man, one night's not going to make any difference with whatever Bobby's run across. And we'll stand a better chance of being sharp when we get there."

Dean stared away down the street for a long moment, unseeing. Sam had a point. All right, Sam had more than a point - Sam was right. Dean didn't actually think he would end up running the Impala off the road, but he wasn't at his most focused.

But he desperately wanted to get the hell out of this town, out of this entire fucking state.

"Dean," Sam murmured softly.

"Fine," Dean said shortly. "We'll leave first thing in the morning, then. Early."

Sam let out a relieved breath. "Fine. Okay. Great."

The walk back to the motel took place in awkward silence. Sam retreated to the bathroom, ostensibly for a shower, but more likely to get away from Dean for a while. Dean lay down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

There was no reason why he shouldn't go to sleep. But he really didn't want to, and not just because he'd drunk a ridiculous amount of coffee at the diner.

In the end, he set about cleaning their weapons. It was a routine that had always soothed him, ever since their father had first allowed him to help as a child, long before he'd been allowed to fire a gun. It was so familiar now that he no longer had to think about what he was doing; he suspected he could do it in his sleep. It gave him something to occupy himself while he thought, or tried not to think.

He'd rather been hoping to stop thinking tonight, but it didn't look like his mind was going to cooperate.

The memories hitting him now were at least less sharp-edged than some of the ones he'd been hit by earlier. _Sammy holding out his report card and beaming. His father clapping him on the shoulder, his smile almost proud. His mom smiling at him, kissing his forehead as he ran to her._  
_  
_Sam had emerged from the bathroom at some point while Dean was distracted, and was perched on the other bed, rubbing his hair dry and watching Dean. Dean ignored him as best he could and focused instead on the knife he was currently sharpening.

His father had given him this knife. He'd been _twelve, and his first proper knife, sharper, longer, more dangerous than any of the knives he'd been allowed before; sleeping with it under his pillow, __both__ reassurance and reminder to be vigilant._

"- Dean? Dean?"

Dean blinked and looked up. Sam was staring at him, and judging by the expression on his face he'd been saying Dean's name for a while. Damn.

"What, Sam?"

Sam hesitated. "Just... are you okay? You've been sharpening that knife for ages."

"Gotta get it properly sharp," Dean said, then relented at the look on Sam's face. "I'm okay, Sammy, honestly. Just... a lot of memories to sort through. They're stronger when I'm tired," he admitted cautiously, reluctant to admit that to Sam for some reason.

Sam looked worried now. "I really think you maybe ought to get some sleep, Dean -"

Oh yes, that was the reason. Sam could switch from irritating younger brother to fussy mother hen in two seconds flat.

"Sam," he interrupted, "I'm okay. Stop hovering. I'll go to bed when I'm ready. Soon, okay?"

Sam didn't look convinced, but dropped the subject for the time being.

Dean slid the knife back into its sheath and picked up the next one.

When he next glanced up, Sam had retreated to bed, and appeared to be fast asleep. Dean checked his watch and raised an eyebrow; it was far later than he'd thought. He finished up with the knife he was working on and set about quietly packing everything away.

But when he switched off the lamp a few minutes later and slid into his own bed, he could feel himself tensing up. He _really _didn't want to go to sleep. Which was not to say he wasn't tired; he was exhausted, and it was getting hard to tune out the memories at all. He just had a horrible suspicion that sleeping would somehow be worse.

By the time he found himself snapping upright in bed only a couple of hours later, glowing gold eyes still vivid in his mind, he knew that he'd been right.

~*~

"Sam, wake up and move your ass, we're burning daylight."

Sam groaned and opened his eyes. Dean was standing over his bed, fully dressed and looking like he'd been up for hours. In fact, this looked like a post-second-coffee Dean. "What time is it?"

"'Bout six," Dean said. "Come on, get moving. I want to reach Bobby's sometime today."

With another groan, Sam sat up and stared at Dean, who had started packing things into a duffle bag. "Dude, when do you ever get up this early?"

"When I've got places to be," Dean shot back. "Are you gonna move it or not?"

Sam shook his head in disbelief and slid out of bed. It wasn't that Dean normally tended to sleep in late - unless he'd been out drinking the night before - but it was rare for him to get up before Sam. Sure, that was partly because Sam was usually woken up by nightmares, but even if they both slept through the night, Dean rarely got up before seven.

To wake up at six and find Dean awake, dressed and chivvying him to get up so they could hit the road was somewhat disconcerting.

He wanted to ask Dean how much sleep he'd gotten, whether he'd even slept at all. He wanted to ask if the memories were any less overwhelming this morning. But considering how prickly Dean had been the previous evening, he decided against risking any questions until they were on the road, at least. Sometimes Dean relaxed more when he was behind the wheel. Perhaps then he'd be willing to let Sam get away with a question or two.

Dean did seem less tense once they'd gotten underway. Sam drank the coffee his brother had had waiting for him when he'd woken him up, and thought about the way Dean had been behaving. It was understandable that he was acting oddly, Sam supposed; he couldn't quite imagine what it must have been like for him to lose his memories a little at a time. And then regain them all at once, so violently. Whether Dean was willing to admit it or not - hell, it was possible he didn't even fully realise it - he was not okay. He'd been spacing out far too much, gazing into the distance, entirely lost in the memories washing over him.

He was relieved that Dean had finally agreed not to set off last night, but he wished he could be certain Dean had got a reasonable amount of sleep.

"So," Sam hazarded after an hour or so. Dean had slowly been unwinding and was now humming along quietly to Blue Oyster Cult, which was probably a good sign. "Don't bite my head off or anything, man, but how are you doing?"

Dean shot him a glance. "Sammy... it just feels like you've done nothing but ask me how I am for days. I'm okay. Seriously. You need to chill out a bit, dude."

Sam arched an eyebrow. "Really? How many hours' sleep did you get, in that case?"

"Enough," Dean said, irritation creeping into his voice.

"Okay, fine," Sam said, conceding defeat. Trying to get Dean to open up was a matter of picking your battles very carefully.

He decided to try to get some sleep for a while. They had a fairly long drive ahead of them, and Dean might relax a bit if Sam just left him alone for a while. Besides, it had been a tiring few days.

~*~

Sam stirred and opened his eyes. He looked around, blinking.

The car wasn't moving. They were parked somewhere on the verge of a side-road. Sam scrubbed at his eyes and wondered why Dean had stopped.

Beside him, the driver's seat was empty.

Sam leaned forward and glanced around, and spotted his brother almost immediately. Dean was about twenty feet away near the treeline, pacing back and forth, one hand massaging between his eyes.

_Not a good sign_, Sam thought. Dean rarely stopped just to stretch his legs, especially when he was so concerned about making good time. It wasn't out of the question that he might have decided to stop anyway and simply chosen to let Sam sleep, because Dean was a hundred times the mother hen he'd accused Sam of being earlier, but more likely it would have been in some town where he could get coffee. No, something was definitely wrong.

Sam climbed out of the Impala, slamming the door behind him, but the noise didn't cause Dean to pause in his pacing. That made Sam hasten his step as he crossed the ground to reach his brother.

Dean didn't even seem to see him as he approached. He kept pacing, and while the hand he had pressed to his forehead made it difficult to read his expression, the tension in the line of his shoulders told its own story.

"Dean?"

Sam was hesitant to reach out and touch his brother if Dean was unaware of his presence; Dean was someone who it was safer to avoid startling if possible.

"Dean," he repeated instead. "Hey, Dean, come on."

"Son of a _bitch_," Dean suddenly muttered savagely, and whirled to slam his fist against the trunk of the nearest tree.

"Dean!" Sam reached out immediately, grabbing his brother's wrist in case he decided to take another swing and checking for damage. "_Jesus_, Dean..."

Dean was breathing hard, but he seemed to have come back to himself. He simply stared at Sam as he carefully inspected the hand.

"Jesus," Sam repeated again, shaking his head. "I don't think you broke anything, at least. You back with me now?"

"Sammy?"

It was almost a question, and the hopeless confusion in Dean's voice made Sam swallow hard.

"Yeah, Dean, I'm here," he said softly, still rubbing the bruised hand gently, since Dean seemed too disoriented to take it back, even if he was unlikely to accept any more physical contact than that. "You want to tell me what happened?"

"I..." Dean faltered. "I'm not sure. I was remembering..."

"What?" Sam prompted when Dean hesitated again. "What were you remembering, Dean?"

Dean was silent for a long moment, looking younger than Sam could remember him ever actually being. "Things best forgotten," he said finally, and pulled his hand out of Sam's grasp, rubbing at his face again. "I just had to get outta the car for a minute, walk it off. Guess I got caught up again, though."

"You nearly broke your hand punching that tree, Dean," Sam said. Worry was gnawing at him, and growing worse at the sight of Dean already starting to retreat back into himself. "It must have been a pretty bad memory."

Dean shook his head, though not in denial. "It was a long time ago. It was just... weird, reliving it again. It seemed different now." He shook his head again, more definitely this time. "Look, I'm okay now. Let's get out of here."

"Dean..." Sam tried again. "Listen, man, you can't keep trying to ignore all of this. It's obviously not working."

His brother shook his head once more, jaw clenching. "Sam, drop it. I'm fine, let's just -"

"Listen to yourself!" Sam exclaimed. "Dean, I'm serious, here! You have got to start letting me help you with this because you are _losing _it. You really think you can deal with a new job in this condition? At this rate you are going to get yourself killed, and excuse me if I'm not prepared to just sit idly by and watch!"

For a split-second, Sam thought that Dean might punch him again.

"What exactly is it you want, here, Sam?" Dean demanded instead, stepping up so close as to be almost intimidating, height difference be damned. "You think me spilling my guts to you is going to make the slightest difference? You can't change the past, Sam! You can't undo any of it, and you can't say anything that'll make it better, so why the hell should we waste our time talking about it?"

Sam forced himself to take a deep breath and stay calm. "I'm not saying I can just... wave a magic wand and make it all better, Dean. But I'll stand a hell of a lot better chance of being able to help, even if it's just by shutting the hell up, if I know what's going on with you." He stared at Dean's stubborn expression, and tried another tack. "Look, man, how many times have you been worried about something going on with me and tried to get me to open up to you about it?"

"Yeah, and how many times have you actually done it?" Dean muttered, but he was looking down at the ground now.

"Often enough," Sam said quietly. "Maybe not right away, but always, in the end. And I never wound up regretting it when I did."

There was a heavy silence for a moment before Dean exhaled sharply.

"Sam... This really wasn't that important. It was just... stuff from when we were kids. Like I said, it's just weird reliving it again now, with a different perspective. If it were something current, I'd tell you, okay? But if you want me to talk about every shitty memory I have of things long-since buried and gone, we're gonna get nothing else done for weeks, and Bobby says there are kids out there dying, Sam."

Sam nodded slowly, recognising that this was a time to be satisfied with how far he'd got, rather than pushing for more. "Okay. But you'll tell me if something current is bugging you?"

"_Yes,_ Sam," Dean said in martyred tones, turning back towards the road. "Now if we're quite finished with the chick-flick moment, can we get back on the road?"

"Sure," Sam said agreeably, walking with him. "Just as soon as you give me the keys."

That brought Dean's head snapping around, and he stopped dead. "Dude, if you think -"

"Dean, if _you_ think I'm going to sit back and let you drive while you're spacing out like this, you're an idiot," Sam overrode him. "Don't give me any of that you-almost-crashed-the-car bullshit. If you got even four hours' sleep last night, I'll be surprised. You want to hit the road again now? Fine. But I'm driving."

They stared each other down for a moment, until Dean finally pulled out the keys and threw them in Sam's direction, perhaps a little harder than strictly necessary, and strode off towards the car again.

The silence when they were back in the Impala was not as strained as Sam had feared. He concentrated on turning the car around and heading back to find the main road. He'd been asleep for most of the time Dean had been driving before, but it didn't take him too long to get his bearings.

"You should try to catch some sleep," he said finally, glancing sideways at Dean.

"Don't feel like it," Dean muttered, then had to suppress a yawn.

"Yeah, that was convincing," Sam mocked. "Look, man, you said before the memories are worse when you're tired, right? So get some sleep, maybe that'll help. You've barely slept in days, it's no wonder you're exhausted. Sleep deprivation doesn't suit you."

"I once went three days without sleep, I'll have you know," Dean said, sounding slightly insulted. "And I was fine."

"Oh, yeah, fine," Sam agreed readily. "If you call becoming obsessed with the idea that the perfectly harmless motel owner was a Manananggal and laying garlic and salt traps for her fine, that is."

"Yeah, well, she could have been," Dean muttered.

"She was an entirely normal, innocent woman who would have been well within her rights to kick us out of the motel for that," Sam said, a smile tugging at his lips at the memory. "The point being that lack of sleep is not good even for you, Dean. I'm pretty sure we've still got some sleeping pills if you really think you won't be able to sleep..."

"Jesus, you're a pushy bastard," Dean grumbled, slumping down in his seat. "Fine, I'll try to sleep. But don't even think of putting any of your crap emo music on, or I will kick your ass before I've even woken up, you hear me?"

"I think the phrase I'm looking for is 'shotgun shuts his cakehole'," Sam mused. "Go to sleep already."

Dean muttered something under his breath, but a few minutes later Sam heard his breathing even out.

If Dean hadn't been so obviously exhausted, Sam would have toyed with the idea of putting some of his own music on just to piss his brother off. As it was, he simply hummed softly to himself as he drove, enjoying the morning. Half ten, he noted, glancing at the watch. He could drive for two or three hours and then stop for lunch somewhere. And he'd insist that Dean go back to sleep and let him drive after lunch, too.

As it turned out, however, it was only about an hour later that Dean began to stir in his sleep. Since Dean was generally not a restless sleeper - a light sleeper, yes, but not a restless one - Sam kept a concerned eye on him. When Dean muttered "Tessa..." under his breath, Sam couldn't suppress a grin, and he was about to concede that Dean had a point about him turning into a mother hen when Dean suddenly started murmuring "No, no, no," and Sam's grin faded. _No_ was not really a word Sam would have expected if Dean was simply dreaming about some hot chick.

Disquieted, Sam debated whether to wake Dean or just wait and hope that the dream would pass. He knew a thing or two about what nightmares could be like, and he was annoyed with himself for not realising sooner that they might have been part of the reason Dean had been so reluctant to go to sleep. It was almost to be expected that having so many memories dragged up so violently would cause nightmares. Although that also meant that it might be better to let Dean sleep and hope that his subconscious would deal with some of the memories while he was out.

Naturally, as soon as Sam had reached that decision, Dean shot upright with a gasp, staring around wildly.

"Whoa," Sam said, keeping his voice as soothing as he thought Dean would let him away with. "Easy, man. You okay?"

Dean groaned and scrubbed a hand across his face. "Peachy. How long was I asleep?"

"Barely an hour," Sam replied, sending him a sideways glance. "Nightmare?"

Dean grunted what could probably be taken as an affirmative, settling back down into his seat but keeping his eyes open.

"I guess it figures, after having so many memories dredged up," Sam offered. "You gonna tell me about it?"

There was a long silence, and Sam was about to try again when Dean finally spoke. "You remember when I woke up in the hospital?"

Sam glanced across at him. "Of course I do."

Dean was staring sightlessly out of the front window. "I couldn't remember anything from when I was in the coma. I knew what you told me, that we'd communicated, the things I'd told you, but I couldn't remember any of it."

A feeling of dread was settling in Sam's stomach. He wanted to say something, but had no clue what, now that he had a glimmer of an idea about where this was going. Instead, he stayed quiet and let Dean talk.

"I remember now." Dean cleared his throat. "There was a Reaper after me, while I was... out of my body. I saw it a few times, and I was trying to figure out a way to fight it when I met... when I met Tessa. She seemed to be in the same situation as me, said she'd come in for a routine op but there'd been complications. It wasn't until you brought the journal through that night that I realised... Reapers can affect our perceptions. And I realised that Tessa was the Reaper."

"What did you do?" Sam asked quietly. God, it was harder to talk about this than he'd expected. It hurt, remembering Dean lying so still and pale in that hospital bed. It hurt to think how very close Sam had come to losing him.

"I went after her," Dean said. "We... talked, I guess. Argued. Well, I argued. She was as calm as you'd probably expect from a Reaper. She tried to convince me to give in, go with her."

"But you didn't," Sam said with certainty and not a little relief. Dean's silence, though, made him glance over, and the sickening lurch in his stomach at the expression on Dean's face made Sam pull over, off the road, because there was no way he could drive and have this conversation at the same time. "Dean..."

"I don't know what I would have done, Sammy," Dean admitted painfully, quietly. "She said that if I stayed, I would - would become an angry spirit. That I'd become what we hunt. I didn't want to leave, but I didn't want that either. I don't know what I would have chosen."

There was a long silence, and Sam wanted to reach out to his brother so much that he almost ached with it. Instead he shifted a little closer, just enough for him to brush against Dean.

"As it was, I didn't get the chance to choose," Dean went on with forced briskness. "All of a sudden there was darkness spilling out of the vents and into Tessa. She barely had time to react before the demon possessed her. It all happened real fast. One minute we were talking, and the next, she turned around and her eyes... And it grabbed me and threw me and I woke up in bed with a tube down my throat."

Sam nodded, because he simply didn't know what to say. He'd started to suspect pretty soon after their father's death that he'd done _something_ to bring Dean back, something that had cost him his life. He'd been careful not to say anything to Dean, hoping that Dean wouldn't make that connection, and until Dean had finally started talking to him about it after their run-in with the zombie girl - god, had that really been less than a week ago? It felt like a lifetime - he had honestly hoped that Dean hadn't put the pieces together.

And now, knowing, having absolute confirmation of the lengths their father had gone to in order to save Dean's life, Sam still didn't know what to say to help his brother cope with that knowledge.

"Anyway," Dean said finally, "I've been having dreams since then, about Tessa and the possession. I didn't remember them until after the ritual. I guess my subconscious has been trying to remind me about... all of that."

"No wonder you've been drinking so much coffee," Sam said softly, mustering a half-smile for his brother. "And I hate to say it, but you really could use some more sleep, Dean, dreams or no dreams."

Dean sighed. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I know. Just..."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Look, how about you try and get some more sleep, and we stop for lunch whenever you next wake up? Even a few short naps in a row would be better than nothing."

"Fine, whatever," Dean said, slumping down and shifting around in an attempt to get comfortable. "But next time you have nightmares, I am so making you do the same thing. Payback's a bitch, Sammy."

Sam grinned. "I promise I'll take my medicine like a good boy."

"You'll take it like the pissy little bitch you are," Dean groused. "No illusions on that score. But you fucking _will_ take it, I swear to god."

Sam laughed. "Fine. But you want to dish it out later, Dean, you got to take it now. So suck it up and go back to sleep, unless you want me to start singing you a lullaby or something?"

"Thought we were trying to avoid nightmares," Dean muttered under his breath, but his expression was lighter and he had closed his eyes again.

Sam smiled and turned the key in the ignition.

~*~

  
Sam didn't push ahead too hard during the journey, preferring to take things a little slower and give Dean time to sleep. His brother had dozed on and off for most of the day, a sure sign that he'd been even more exhausted than he'd admitted. The number of times Dean had startled awake from nightmares, though, had caused Sam some concern, and he'd resolved to try not to be quite so cranky next time Dean went all overprotective on him after Sam had nightmares. It turned out that watching it happen was no picnic either.

They arrived at Bobby's late that evening, late enough that Sam was confident Dean wouldn't insist on heading out to start investigating that night. Bobby welcomed them both with warm handshakes, giving Dean a quick once-over and enquiring gruffly how he was doing.

Dean played it all down, not that Sam had expected anything else, and then they busied themselves unloading the Impala and moving their bags into the room they'd stayed in after leaving the hospital, familiar after the months they'd lived there.

It was a little odd being back there: the place was too full of memories of that time, the stifling pressure of their grief. Sam swallowed hard and offered silent thanks for the fact that Dean was slowly starting to come back to him, no longer the silent ghost he'd been during their time there.

It was then that it occurred to Sam, perhaps a little belatedly, that if this place was bringing up bad memories for him, what the hell might it be doing to Dean in his current condition?

He dumped his duffle bag on the bed and hastened down the stairs to find his brother.

He exited the front door to see Dean standing behind the Impala, one hand resting on the trunk, staring at nothing, his face grave. Sam groaned silently and wished he'd had the sense to insist that they find a motel instead of coming to Bobby's; he resolved to ensure they didn't stay any longer than necessary. Taking a deep breath, he started towards his brother, walking forward to stand close, hoping that Dean would turn and meet his eyes. "Dean?"

It took a second, but Dean did turn in response, and Sam heaved a sigh of relief. Dean was blinking and looking slightly disoriented, but Sam took it as a good sign that he'd snapped out of it so quickly and didn't appear as distressed as he had that morning.

"Hey," Sam said quietly. "You okay? Being here, I mean?"

"Yeah," Dean said slowly. "Just... a lot of memories. But I'm okay. You had a point, making me sleep, I guess. Are _you_ okay?"

Sam smiled smugly at his brother's admission, but sobered quickly. "Yeah. It's just a bit weird being back here."

Dean nodded silently.

"You ready to go in?" Sam asked after a moment. "Bobby's going to think we've gotten lost or something."

"Yeah," Dean said, abruptly business-like. "Let's go find out what's going on."

~*~

Dean accepted the cup of coffee Bobby passed him, ignoring Sam's slightly disapproving look. He was willing to let Sam get away with a certain amount of mother-henning if it made him feel better, especially if that meant Dean got to return the favour next time Sam had nightmares, but it would be a cold day in hell before Dean turned down a decent cup of coffee.

The house held as many memories as the salvage yard did. Dean didn't even attempt to suppress them entirely, but the amount of sleep he'd gotten in the car really had helped, and they weren't causing him to space out as much as he was certain they would have done if they'd driven through the night, as he'd originally planned.

It was always annoying when Sam turned out to be right, but if it meant Dean didn't have to be trapped in the memory of what he'd done to Meg, he would put up with it.

"So," Bobby was saying, "you doing all right, Dean?"

"Better," Dean said briefly. "I'm okay, Bobby."

"Good, glad to hear it," Bobby said, and Dean was reminded again that that was one of the things he liked about Bobby: he didn't pry, didn't ask awkward questions, just minded his own business. If Dean said he was okay, that was all that mattered to Bobby.

"Sorry to drag you both all the way back here," Bobby said, already moving on to the next topic, "but there's been some strange goings-on that I thought you boys would maybe want to know about."

"You said on the phone that people were dying," Dean said quietly. "Kids."

"A lot of 'em," Bobby confirmed. "C'mon through, let me show you."

Dean had been avoiding the front room as much as possible so far; the memories had been letting him off relatively light, but he hadn't wanted to tempt fate by spending too much time in the room where they'd trapped Meg, where he'd insisted that the exorcism be performed regardless of the consequences, where Meg had died as a result. But there wasn't much choice: that was where all Bobby's books were, and it wasn't like he could avoid it forever.

And the memories that washed over him when they followed Bobby through to the other room were bad, but not as overwhelming as he'd feared. Sam touched his arm fleetingly and they washed over him rather than dragging him down; he was able to exhale and give Sam a smile, albeit a slightly strained one, and refocus on what Bobby was saying.

"...saving the death notices." Bobby was pulling out a whole stack of newspaper clippings. "The doctors at the hospital don't have a clue, of course. They're talking 'bout some kind of epidemic, some infection or other. Bullshit, but they don't know no better." He passed the sheaf of clippings to Sam, who glanced at the first and began skimming through them.

"Didn't think nothing of it at first," Bobby explained as Sam read. "Started while you boys were here, near as I can tell, but it took a while for it to become obvious. Kids have been dying. Babies, most of 'em - usually about six months old. But some a bit older, two or three years. No previous illness in most cases, no obvious cause of death - they figured it was crib death at the start, but there got to be too many for 'em to believe that. "Natural causes", according to the autopsies, when they were carried out, though what that's meant to mean, I don't rightly know. Not convinced there's anything natural about 'em."

"And all these deaths happened around here?" Dean asked, watching Sam read.

"Near here, though most across the state line in Missouri." Bobby gestured to the clippings. "I'll let you draw your own conclusions, though. And it's late, you must both be tired. You can wait and get a proper start in the morning."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. In truth, he wasn't sure he would be able to sleep after dozing for most of the day, but he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to retreat back up to the bedroom, either. Bobby was a good guy, but Dean really wasn't feeling hugely up to dealing with people right then, even Bobby, and especially not in this room. "I think maybe I will turn in now, actually. Sam, you coming up too?" Sam wasn't people, after all. Sam was _Sam._

"Yeah, sure," Sam agreed absently, still studying the clippings.

Dean rolled his eyes, wished Bobby goodnight, and headed up the stairs. He was almost surprised to hear Sam following him: he'd thought his brother had already descended too deep into geek mode to have heard a word Dean had said, but apparently not.

Sam closed the door of the guest bedroom they were sharing behind them and dropped the newspaper clippings onto the table. "So what do you think?"

Dean shrugged, moving across to stare out the window for a moment before drawing the curtains. "Too early to say. But Bobby's got good instincts, and he wouldn't have asked us to come here if he didn't think this was our kind of gig."

His brother nodded thoughtfully, and began getting ready for bed. "True." He glanced up again at Dean, who was still standing motionless next to the window. "Aren't you going to bed?"

Dean sighed. "I guess. I just don't feel real tired, since _someone_ insisted I spend the entire drive here sleeping."

"And it helped," Sam pointed out, his voice smug. "So bite me. And considering how little sleep you've been getting lately, Dean, I think you could probably use a little more now regardless."

With a defeated groan, Dean began stripping down for bed. Since it seemed his only other choices were to head back downstairs and talk with Bobby or sit and read death notices and stop his brother from sleeping, he'd put up with Sam's satisfied grin for the time being. And find some way to bring him down a peg or two the next day, naturally.

But he was not surprised when, long after they'd turned out the lights and Sam's breathing had evened out, he found himself lying awake, staring at the faint light filtering through the curtains.

It was weird, being back in this room. He'd spent so many nights lying awake, staring up at the ceiling. Sam had lain awake a lot too, both of them silent. Staying here for the months it had taken them to recuperate and repair the Impala, with only a few roadtrips to deal with nearby hunts, had been the longest he'd stayed in one place in he didn't know how long. Years.

It was just as well Sam had forced him to sleep. The memories of being here would probably have been completely overwhelming otherwise. He was still tired enough that he couldn't suppress them entirely, but they weren't blocking out all else like they had that morning.

That had been a bit alarming, in retrospect. Thank Christ he'd had the sense to pull over and get out of the car, because he didn't like to think what might have happened otherwise, and his baby didn't need to take any more hits. Those memories had hit him like a sledgehammer, and to be honest, he kind of thought a sledgehammer might have hurt less.

There were lots of things Dean just didn't waste time and energy dwelling on. Sam had always been the one to bitch about the way they'd grown up, the things they'd seen and done. Sam had wanted the perfect, picket-fence normal life, had always held a grudge for not getting it. Dean had just dealt, because he'd known how fake normal was, known how quickly it could (would) be ripped away, known that normal was over for him, gone. Sam had whined; Dean had sucked it up and got on with the job.

_Like a good little soldier,_ Sam's voice whispered mockingly in his memory, and oh Christ, he really didn't need his mind to start going _there_ next.

Dean had dealt, and he'd just set aside the things he'd sometimes wanted because things were the way they were. There were things they had to do, his Daddy had told him so, and that was that. _Pull yourself together, Dean-o, you know better than that._ And Dean had accepted it, pushed it all down, given up thinking about it except when Sam's complaints escalated to the point where Dean didn't know whether he wanted to punch Sam or himself.

All those memories coming back that morning, things he'd forced down and suppressed and blocked out, it had been more than just weird. Remembering Mikey, his best friend in the third grade, the first real friend Dean had managed to make after they left Lawrence and took off across the country, that had hurt. Dean was pretty sure he hadn't even remembered Mikey's name until the ritual dredged it all up again. He hadn't remembered his name, or the way they had laughed together, or the pie Mikey's mom had let him help her make, or any of the good stuff from the few months they'd spent in that town. And he'd only remembered the bare bones of Mikey confiding in him about the thing in his closet, or how his father had explained to him what to do before letting him go to the sleepover, making him repeat the Latin out loud again and again until he was satisfied. His father had been tracking something bigger, had trusted him to deal with the thing in Mikey's closet.

Dean thought he'd probably forced himself to forget how wide and terrified Mikey's eyes had been while Dean had dispatched the thing in the closet. Or how afterwards Mikey had whispered his name like a prayer and hugged him, and Dean had held on and tried to stop trembling because he'd _done_ it, he'd protected Mikey, and Dad had only left him to deal with the closet-thing because he knew Dean could handle it and he _had_, so there was no point in shaking like a baby.

And remembering it all now, as an adult, was somehow different to living through it as a kid. Dean knew that the things that hid in closets were generally simple enough to dispatch, that even at that age he'd been well-trained and was not your average kid, but remembering how he'd felt that night now, without the protective childhood veil of _Daddy knows best_...

Dean had almost never got angry with their father, had always had faith that he knew what he was doing, that he knew best, that things were the way they had to be. Having those memories brought back that morning and feeling that unfamiliar anger and hurt swelling in him had been... terrifying. Sickening.

_Being forced to pack up and leave town two days later after Dad killed what he'd been hunting, no time even to say goodbye to Mikey, and Dean had never bothered trying to make friends with the kids at his schools after that._

Dad passing nine-year-old Sammy the shotgun so he could deal with the thing in **his** closet, and Dean had sneaked into Sammy's bedroom to help, because Dad was - not wrong, never wrong, impossible - but... he couldn't expect Sammy to just...

Dad coming back to the motel and finding Dean feeding the stray puppy he'd found on the streets and yelling at him about the risks (**rabies, Dean, diseases, you're meant to be looking after your brother, not stray animals, what if it had been a hellhound, would you even have known?**) before taking it away, and Dean had never dared to ask whether he'd taken it to a shelter or abandoned it somewhere or just shot it.

All those memories and a thousand more like them, and Dean had never had the luxury of anger at the time because his father was all he had, but he'd been angry that morning when the memories overwhelmed him. He understood exactly why his father had acted the way he did in every one of those memories, understood it right down to the bone, but that hadn't taken away the terrifying flare of unfamiliar anger.

He hadn't really understood at the time why his father was apologising to him in the hospital, but he thought he might get it a bit better now.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face and sat up, glancing across at his brother, still fast asleep. Thank Christ Sammy hadn't managed to force him to talk about those memories that morning. That was one conversation Dean did not ever want to have.

After a moment, Dean got out of bed as quietly as he could and decided to go downstairs and make himself some coffee. The memories waiting for him down there couldn't hit any harder than the ones currently circling in his head.


	4. Chapter 4

"Okay," Sam said, pushing back from Bobby's old PC and turning to look at his brother. "So let's recap: what do we know?"

Dean's bed had been empty when Sam had woken up that morning. He had found his brother downstairs, poring over the newspaper clippings Bobby had given them, taking notes and sipping absently from a mug of black coffee. Sam considered that rather a worrying sign. It wasn't that Dean was _bad_ at research, but it definitely wasn't his favourite part of their job, so either Dean was really preoccupied with this case or he was trying to distract himself from the aftermath of their last one, and Sam had his suspicions as to which.

He wondered how much sleep Dean had actually gotten last night.

"Right," Dean said, leaning back in his chair. "So. Seventeen of these death notices are for six-month-old kids. They didn't all die at exactly six months, but within a couple of weeks of it, which is the pattern that made Bobby suspicious and made him think of us. For the first six or seven deaths, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is given as the official cause, which is of course medical shorthand for not having a fucking clue. In the later cases, they don't even try to pass that off as the cause of death, I guess because even the doctors couldn't convince themselves it was all a big coincidence at that point. There are a few concerned articles about some kind of possible epidemic, they've run a crib death awareness campaign just to be on the safe side, but the bottom line is they're clueless."

"Six months old. Huh," Sam said, trying not to jump to conclusions based on that alone. After all, it was the kids that were dying, not their mothers. There was no need to get paranoid.

"Seventeen of 'em, yeah," Dean agreed. "But there are six or seven clippings here for slightly older kids, too. Up to about three or four years old. They couldn't put those deaths down to crib death, but they couldn't come up with any alternative, either. The kids were just... dead. And these are just the ones Bobby's run across, dude. Christ knows how many more there've been."

"That's a lot of kids," Sam said quietly.

"Yeah." Dean took another sip of his coffee. "So, what have you turned up?"

"I've been trying to look at death-rate statistics," Sam said. "Of course, they're not available for this year yet, but I managed to find the statistics for last year and I've been comparing them to the reported deaths in the area for this year so far. And they're _way_ up. The infant death rate is through the roof. But it's not just infants. All age groups are up, as far as I can tell, though the biggest spike is for infants and young children. Unexpected, unexplained deaths, no obvious cause. For the adults it's mostly just ascribed to sudden heart failure, even though these were previously healthy people."

"So, not just kids," Dean muttered, setting down his pen. "OK, so what do we know that could be causing something like this? Because it sure as hell ain't something natural, Bobby's right about that."

Sam bit his lip, thinking. "Well, I had been wondering if it might be another shtriga..." He tailed off, wincing slightly as Dean went rigid, but his brother seemed to recover fairly quickly from whatever memories that reference had dragged up.

"Nope, doesn't fit. Shtrigas only go after kids. And the kids slide into comas first, like we saw in Fitchburg, remember? They don't just drop dead. No, it's not a shtriga."

"Then what?" Sam wondered aloud.

Dean groaned and rested his head on the table. "Just go ahead and say it, Sam."

"...Say what?" Sam asked cautiously.

"Just say it!" Dean said. "Oh, come on, man, don't force _me _to be the one to say it."

"Dean, what the hell are you talking about?" Sam was genuinely bewildered.

"_Fine_," Dean grumbled, sounding very put upon. "You want me to say it? I'll fucking say it. Sam, I think we need to do some more research."

Sam stared at his brother for a long moment and then burst out laughing.

~*~

They wound up driving across the state line to go to a library in Missouri, since the majority of the deaths had occurred there. Dean had headed straight for the driver's side of the car, and Sam had hesitated for a moment, but in the end said nothing. Dean still looked tired, and Sam had his suspicions about how much sleep his brother had got the previous night, but in general Dean seemed more aware of the world around him at the moment. And there was nothing to be gained by pissing Dean off with unnecessary fussing.

Sam straightened up at the computer he'd been working at, staring at the screen, and then looked across to where his brother was bent over a map. Dean looked up almost immediately and caught his eye, then abandoned his notes and came over when Sam beckoned. "What you found, Sam?"

"Another death," Sam said, shifting to the side to let Dean look at the screen. "Last night."

Dean scanned the article on the local newspaper's website. "Thomas Harker... twenty-four years old... dead on arrival at hospital... unknown cause of death... suspected heart failure. Yeah, looks like he fits our pattern, all right."

"He worked at a warehouse near here," Sam said, highlighting a couple of lines with the mouse. "That's where he collapsed."

"Sounds like it's worth checking out," Dean agreed, already heading back to grab his notes. "Let's go."

The warehouse wasn't too difficult to find. They passed themselves off as friends of the deceased's, although they almost gave themselves away when Dean referred to the guy as "Tommy" and it turned out he'd refused to let anyone call him that. But with a lot of charm and fast-talking, they managed to snatch a few minutes alone in the storeroom where Harker had collapsed.

"Oh yeah," Dean muttered as the EMF meter's lights flared. "Something definitely happened here."

Sam was inspecting the room for any clues. "But what would do this? And why Harker?"

"Why any of them?" Dean answered. "There've been too many deaths for whatever's causing it to be all that specialised in its choice of victims. What have any of them got in common?"

Sam heaved a frustrated sigh and moved away from the wall he'd been studying. "There's nothing to find here, man. Maybe we should go talk to the doctors at the hospital?"

"You honestly think they're gonna know any more than we do?" Dean asked. "Hell, I'd say we're at least a couple of steps ahead of them already."

"No, of course I don't think they're going to know what's really going on," Sam said. "But they might be able to give us a bit more information about the deaths."

Dean slipped the EMF meter back into his pocket. "Yeah, fine, I guess we might as well. And after that we should probably carry on looking into the other victims. There's got to be something we're not seeing."

They left the storeroom and Sam thanked the manager they'd spoken to earlier, who seemed willing to set aside his suspicions about them now that they were leaving.

"Or we could check out the college first," Dean suggested, as they wound their way among the stacks of crates towards the exit. "The manager said he was studying just down the road from here, closer than the hos-"

He broke off suddenly, and Sam turned to see why -

\- and was caught completely off-guard by the sight of a heavy metal crate overbalancing, about to crash straight into his brother.

Sam didn't even have time to think, let alone curse: he simply ploughed into Dean, sending them both to the floor, rolling them away from the crate, which hit the ground with a sickening crash.

Breathing hard as the adrenaline burned through him, Sam raised his head and looked across at the crate. God, if that had hit Dean's head, he'd have been _killed_.

"Jesus, Dean," he whispered, gazing down at his brother.

Dean had ended up beneath him as they'd rolled, but was now pushing Sam off him abruptly, sitting up and staring not at the crate on the floor, but the top of the pile it had fallen from.

"Dean?" Sam asked, getting to his knees, looking from his brother to the place Dean was staring at.

Around them, people were shouting and running in their direction.

Dean was still staring at the pile of crates.

"Dean," Sam said, more urgently, starting to get worried now.

His brother's head snapped around as if he'd only just realised Sam was speaking.

"Dude, you okay?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Dean said, though he still sounded distracted.

Then the manager and the workers were on them, pulling them to their feet and anxiously enquiring whether they were all right.

"I don't understand it!" the manager was saying, shaking his head. "We have strict safety precautions - that crate shouldn't have been able to topple over like that. Are either of you hurt?"

"We're fine," Dean said, not quite politely. "Thanks again for taking the time to answer our questions, but we _really _have to be going."

He was off and moving almost before he'd finished speaking, leaving Sam to accept the manager's apologies and smooth things over before he hastened after him.

Dean had reached the street before Sam managed to catch up, and was walking quickly towards the Impala.

"Dean?" Sam asked again. "Dean, what happened?"

"You were there, Sam, you saw it as well as I did. Probably better, actually." Dean didn't seem inclined to slow his pace or look at him.

"Better?" Sam frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Dean reached the car and gave an aggravated sigh as he dug in his pockets for the keys. "Nothing, forget about it."

"Oh no, no way," Sam said, keeping a tight grip on his temper. "Talk to me, Dean. What -"

"Look," Dean said flatly. "If you must know, I think the memories... distorted things for me for a moment again. That's all. Like I said, you probably got a clearer view of what was going on than me."

Sam bit his lower lip, watching his brother closely, but snapped out of it when Dean took the keys out of his pocket. "Pass them here."

For a moment, Sam thought Dean was about to argue, despite what he'd just admitted, but evidently Dean thought the better of it, because he just rolled his eyes and tossed the keys to Sam.

"So," Sam said in a conversational tone as he climbed behind the wheel, even though his mind was racing, "you feel like telling me now how much sleep you got last night?"

Dean groaned. "You're just not going to let this go, are you, Sam?"

"The memories are still overwhelming you too much," Sam said, keeping his tone as reasonable as possible. "That crate would have killed you if it had landed on you, Dean, and you weren't exactly jumping out of the way."

"Look, I was distracted for a moment," Dean said angrily. "Just one goddamn moment, Sam. Drop it, okay?"

Sam shook his head. "I think we should call it a day, Dean, head back to Bobby's, let you get some sleep."

Dean turned to stare at him, his face incredulous. "You have got to be fucking kidding me, Sam." When Sam met his gaze evenly, Dean exploded. "Sam, there are people dying out here! If you think we're heading back to Bobby's so I can take a fucking _nap_ instead of finding out what the hell is going on, you're crazy."

"Dean, if you're too tired to -"

"I'm _not_!" Dean interrupted. "Jesus Christ, I've been feeling fine up until now. Look, Sam, we've got a job to do, here. Let's at least check out the college, okay? I don't think we'd get much from talking to the doctors anyway, so we can skip the hospital if you feel that strongly about it, but the guy's dorm is right here in the neighbourhood. There's no point in heading back to Bobby's without at least checking it out."

Sam threw up his hands in surrender and started the car. "Fine, Dean, we'll play it your way. But after the college, we're grabbing some dinner and heading back to Bobby's, and then you are _going_ to get some sleep."

He could see his brother grit his teeth to keep from exploding again at his tone, but Sam had had just about enough of all this.

The short drive took place in icy silence.

~*~

Thomas Harker's college dorm was like just about every other one Dean had ever visited. They managed to talk to Harker's roommate with only a few minor difficulties, but he'd been unable to offer any useful information. Harker hadn't suffered from any diseases or heart conditions as far as his roommate knew; in fact, he'd been very healthy and a member of the college track team. Sam had distracted the roommate with sympathetic questions while Dean took a closer look around the apartment, but he'd found nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that explained why this guy might have become a target for...

_Stop jumping to conclusions, Dean. It was just the memories getting the better of you again._

Of course it was. But still, for just a moment, he could have sworn he'd seen...

"Well, thank you for your time," Sam was saying, and Dean snapped back to the here and now, because his brother was acting like enough of a royal pain in the ass without Dean giving him something to go on by spacing out again.

They extricated themselves smoothly, and headed back down the stairs and into the street without looking at each other.

"Nothing?" Sam asked finally, breaking the awkward silence.

"Nothing," Dean confirmed. "I don't know, Sam." He started out onto the road, heading towards the Impala; Sam lagged behind, turning back for one last look at the apartment building. "I'm starting to think -"

He never even saw the car racing around the corner before it hit him.

~*~

For a seemingly unending moment Dean felt as though he was hanging in the air while the world flashed past him, twisted and confused, but then he crashed into the ground with a _smash _that he felt right through to his bones.

Then the pain hit, and the world went grey and hazy as he struggled to breathe.

The first thing he was aware of, when the world started coming back into some kind of focus again, was Sam's voice. For a long moment he couldn't make out words, only the tone, but the tone said enough: fear, fury, determination, with panic threaded underneath. Dean knew the tone well, knew it from every time he'd thought he was losing Sam, every time he'd ordered and yelled and begged him to _hold on, Sammy, don't you dare die on me_.

That was probably a sign that he was in trouble.

"- Dean, do you hear me? Hold on, it's going to be okay... oh God." The words started to make sense, taking shape out of the buzzing in Dean's head, and he heard himself moan.

"Oh, Jesus. Dean. Dean, can you hear me?"

Dean blinked and slowly Sam's face swam into focus. Sam looked horribly pale, his eyes bright with tears, and Christ, but Dean hated seeing Sam hurting that much.

"Sammy," he murmured, and forced another shaky breath as hope sparked in his brother's eyes.

Then Dean shifted his gaze slightly, trying to take in their surroundings and figure out exactly what had happened, and saw her.

She was standing a few metres behind Sam, dark hair as immaculate as when he'd last seen her, her face as uncannily placid as he remembered.

"Tessa," Dean whispered.

She smiled almost imperceptibly. "Hi, Dean."

"...Tessa?" Sam asked, and Dean could almost hear the click as his brother figured it out. "The Reaper? She's here? She's - no! No, you stay the hell away from him!"

"I don't think your brother likes me," Tessa observed serenely, walking slowly forward, skirting around Sam, who was looking around wildly as if hoping to see her and find a target.

"Well, you are... trying to... kill me," Dean managed to force out, his voice still barely above a whisper.

"I thought 'Don't Fear the Reaper' was part of your philosophy," Tessa said, kneeling beside him, reaching out to touch one hand gently to his face.

"If this is where you... ask me to take your hand... you can think again... Hate flying," Dean gasped out.

She smiled at him properly. "Cute."

It was strange, but the touch of her hand against his cheek was slowly bringing the world into sharper focus. The pain was fading and it was getting easier to breathe. Dean couldn't figure out if that was a good sign or a really, really bad one.

Sam tried to punch her, having apparently pinpointed her location from where Dean was looking, but his fist passed right through her as if she weren't there. "Damn you, leave him alone! You can't have him!"

"Tell him to stop, Dean," Tessa said, unruffled. "Hitting girls is never nice. Especially when I'm trying to help. You were dying too fast, and we need to talk."

"Dying too fast?!" Dean repeated, and was caught off-guard by how much stronger his voice was. "Not to seem ungrateful, but it's your fault I'm dying at all, isn't it? I thought I was seeing things when I saw you standing on top of all those crates."

"That was her? With the crates at the warehouse?" Sam asked. "Oh god, she's after you again? Like in the hospital?"

"Yeah, I'm thinking she wasn't entirely on board with the deal Dad made," Dean said through gritted teeth.

Tessa took her hand away from his face, and Dean braced himself for the pain to rush back in, but it was muted now, bearable.

"I didn't approve," Tessa agreed. "Or wouldn't have, if I'd had any input. But the exchange was made, the scales were balanced. Trying to undo it now would cause far more damage. I'm not here to kill you, Dean."

"No?" Dean asked sarcastically. "Because I appreciate you killing the pain, but from where I'm lying, it still looks like you're trying to kill me too."

"I'm starting to think you don't want to talk to me, you know. That could really hurt a girl's feelings." She carried on before Dean could point out that she wasn't really a girl. "I've been trying to reach out to you in your dreams, but your subconscious kept getting in the way, and you never remembered them when you woke up. So once you came back within my reach, I had to take more direct measures. You can only see me when you're dying. But as I said, I've slowed the process down, so we have a few minutes."

Dean swore, remembering the dreams he had written off as his subconscious trying to remind him of his father's deal. God_damn_, if he'd only paid a bit more attention to them when the ritual had brought his memories back...

"Dean?" Sam asked immediately, his voice alarmed.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean reassured him automatically. "Apparently she just wants to talk to me." He was careful to omit the _dying_ part, because he was pretty sure that Sam was on the verge of flying apart as it was. "So what d'you want, Tessa? Because honestly, it's Sammy here who's the big talker, not me."

Tessa stared at him intently. "I need your help, Dean."

"My _help_? You're a -"

"It's still in me."

Dean's mouth snapped shut and he stared at her, noticing for the first time the hint of fear in her eyes. "It's still... All this time." Then, in sudden comprehension, "That's what's been killing all these people."

Tessa actually flinched. "I can fight it off, overcome it, for short periods of time, but I can't cast the demon out. I can't get free. I need your help, Dean."

"That son of a bitch," Dean breathed, staring at her, feeling his heart start to pound at the thought. "Why? Why is it doing this?"

"Demons tend not to believe in making sacrifices," Tessa said, mouth twisting bitterly. "And no Reaper would make a deal with them even if they did. So it's taking what it wants by force."

"Damn it, stop this!" Sam yelled, taking another swing that went right through Tessa. "Enough of the goddamn talking or _whatever_, if you think I'm just going to sit here and watch my brother die - I mean it, get the hell away from him, right now!"

Dean was about to try to reassure Sam again, but found himself suddenly struggling to draw enough breath to do so. And his heart was pounding even harder, as if he'd been sprinting uphill.

"Time's up, for both of us," Tessa said, her serene composure almost entirely intact again. "I can't keep it locked away for much longer. But I'll find you again, Dean."

She reached forward and slid her hand through his hair and down to cradle his jaw, and Dean cried out as the world around him turned strange and slid back out of focus for several dizzying moments.

When his head cleared and he managed to open his eyes, he barely had time to marvel at how good it felt to draw a normal breath before Sam seized him and pulled him into a suffocatingly tight hug. Dean gasped for air again, then clapped his brother reassuringly on the back, deciding to save the teasing until later. After all, he conceded, he'd been known to have a girly moment or two himself when Sam came that close to...

He shook off that thought and pulled back from his brother's embrace. "I'm all right, Sammy."

"Jesus, Dean." Sam's voice was hoarse and his cheeks were tearstained. "You... Fuck. Is she gone? Let's get you to the hospital."

"I think she's gone," Dean said, glancing around. In truth, he couldn't be certain: now that he was no longer dying, he wouldn't be able to see her even if she was still right there. But given what she'd said about the demon, he suspected she would probably head as far away from them as she could before she lost control of it.

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

He took another blessedly deep breath and forced down panic. They would figure out what to do. In the meantime, he had better calm Sammy down before _he _had a heart attack. "I don't need to go to the hospital, Sam. She healed me. I'm fine. Come on, let's just go back to Bobby's." Because Christ, the hospital was the very last place he wanted to visit right then.

"Damn it, Dean, you were _dying_!" Sam's voice cracked on the word, and he swiped at his cheeks with the back of one hand. "And you want to just -"

"Sam," Dean cut in. "I'm fine now. I swear to god. But I do think we should get the hell out of here. Come on." He began to get to his feet, and Sam scrambled to help him. "Gimme the keys."

Sam stared at him for a moment, apparently stricken speechless, then wordlessly helped Dean across the road and forced him into the passenger seat. Dean thought about protesting, but the expression on Sam's face convinced him to stay silent.

Sam started the car and pulled away from the kerb.

Dean tried hard not to look at the bloodstain at the side of the road as they drove past.

~*~

Dean cradled his cup of coffee with both hands and stared down at it rather than watch Sam pacing back and forth across Bobby's tiny guest bedroom.

Sam had driven all the way back, white knuckles clenched on the steering wheel, without saying a single word. Dean hadn't known whether to be grateful for the chance to get his shit together before they plunged into Talking About It, or wish that Sam would just start yelling or throwing punches and get it out of his system.

Dean had showered and changed his clothes while Sam had made coffee; neither of them had eaten, but neither had any appetite left after the evening's events. Eventually there had been no putting it off any longer, and Dean had, reluctantly, filled Sam in on what Tessa had told him. Now Dean was staring into his coffee and bracing himself for the explosion.

"The yellow-eyed demon," Sam said finally. "_The_ demon. Is possessing her. And has been killing all these people."

Dean just nodded.

Sam paused in his pacing and swung round to face his brother. "And she decided to just _kill _you so she could tell you all of this."

"You know as well as I do, Sam, you can only see a Reaper if it's coming at you," Dean said wearily. "Other than dreams, out-of-body experiences, that sort of thing. The dreams didn't get through to me, so she had to try something else."

"She almost _killed_ you," Sam said heatedly, clearly still stuck on that point. "Dean, you almost _died_."

"But she healed me," Dean pointed out. "She was never going to let me actually die, Sam." _Probably_.

Sam shook his head, almost despairing. "There had to have been a better way to handle the situation than to try to kill you, Dean!"

"Well, she is a Reaper," Dean said dryly, starting to tire of Sam's hysteria. "Death's kind of their thing, you know."

"It's not funny, Dean," Sam said flatly, jaw clenched in a way that was far too familiar. "And why go after you? Why not... hell, I don't know. Bobby, I guess? What would she have done if we hadn't come back here?"

"She wasn't _going after_ me, Sam, she was asking for our help," Dean said, trying to keep a tight leash on his temper. "Why the hell would you think she should go to Bobby? It's not like he knows her or who she is -"

"_What_ she is," Sam muttered.

Dean ignored him. "- and it's not like he knows what happened at the hospital. Would he have even believed her? It makes sense that she'd come to me." He pushed off the bed; he was exhausted, but this conversation was rapidly veering towards territory he couldn't handle while sitting still. "Damnit, it's _because _of me that this is happening to her, that all of this is happening." _It's because of me that all these people are dying_.

"What?" Sam turned sharply in Dean's direction, but Dean was already at the other side of the room, staring unseeing out of the window. "Dean, this - this isn't your fault. This -"

"It possessed her to bring me back," Dean said, making damn sure his voice was stripped of all emotion. "I'm the reason this is happening, Sam, no matter how you try to sugarcoat it."

"Dean," Sam said. He sounded appalled. "Dean, it's not your fault! You didn't -"

"Don't, Sam," Dean said wearily. Christ, he was tired. "Look, let's stay focused, here. People are dying. What's the bastard trying to do? Why's it possessing her to kill people? Because, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but it's seemed pretty damn capable of doing that all by itself, right? So what the hell is it up to?"

He turned back to face Sam; the expression on his brother's face let him know that his attempt to shift the discussion had not gone unnoticed, and that although Sam was going to go along with it for the moment - because Dean was right, and they both knew it: people were dying - he would undoubtedly bring it up again as soon as Dean let his guard down an inch.

"I don't know," Sam admitted. "You're right, it doesn't make much sense. What exactly did she say?"

"She said that demons don't tend to believe in making sacrifices," Dean said, remembering. "And that no Reaper would make a deal with them even if they did. So it's taking what it wants by force." He frowned. Something about that was ringing a bell...

Sam was frowning too and biting his lower lip in uncertainty. Dean watched him hesitate for a moment, and was suddenly, coldly angry at the realisation that Sam was trying to figure out a way to say something while sparing his feelings.

"Just spit it out, Sam," he said, a little sharper than he'd intended.

Concern flickered in Sam's eyes. "No, I was just... I mean, she said that she wasn't after you, right? Earlier, you said she told you the scales were balanced or something. Right?"

"Yeah," Dean agreed warily.

Sam heaved a sigh of relief, sinking down to sit on one of the beds. "Good. I just... never mind. That's good."

"What?" Dean demanded. "Damnit, Sam, just tell me."

"No, no, it's just..." Sam waved one hand. "It just occurred to me that this... the deaths... they could have been part of the... well, the price." Catching sight of Dean's expression, he went on hurriedly, "But it was just a thought, and judging by what she said, it's not possible. Forget I mentioned it, okay? I just wanted to be sure."

Dean turned away abruptly to face the window again, feeling sick. Either way, this was his fault, but that idea...

"He wouldn't have agreed to that," he said after a moment, his voice rough. "He would never have agreed to sacrifice those people. That's not it."

He preferred not to be able to see Sam's expression at that moment, because no matter how Sam reacted, it would be painful. Instead, he forced himself to change the topic again. "So. What the hell does it want? Because we've already established that it doesn't need to possess Tessa to kill people."

"Well," Sam said in the tone Dean thought of as 'Sam's lightbulb voice', "Reapers give and take life, right? That's what they do. So if the demon isn't possessing her in order to kill..."

"It has to be wanting to... give life," Dean finished, frowning and turning to meet his brother's gaze. "It's logical, except... _not_. It's a _demon_, Sam."

"Yeah, not exactly renowned for their warm and fuzzy family feelings and chick-flick moments, I know," Sam agreed, looking equally baffled. "But I don't know, Dean, I got nothing else. It can't be doing this in order to kill, so it has to be trying to give life, as little sense as it makes."

"Family feelings," Dean whispered slowly, his mind whirling. "That's it. Jesus, I don't believe it."

"Wait, what?" Sam demanded. "What are you talking about?"

"You remember the cabin?" Dean asked, speaking rapidly now, the words tumbling over each other as they tried to keep pace with how quickly his mind was working. "You remember what the demon said when it was in my face? It said I killed its children. Meg - the demon in Meg - and the guy in the alley, the one I shot with the Colt - it said they were its children."

"Holy shit," Sam said. "It's trying to resurrect them. That's it. There has to be a sacrifice -"

"- And demons aren't into sacrificing themselves," Dean continued. "So it's killing others instead, to balance the scales -"

"- To serve as the sacrifice, to provide the life needed to resurrect its children," Sam agreed. "And that's why it's been killing so many people, too. Its children aren't just dying, they're actually _dead_, that's got to make them much harder to bring back, right?"

"And the guy in the alley, I killed him with the Colt," Dean said, feeling slightly dazed by the realisation. "I'm guessing it's got to take a hell of a lot of power to overcome that."

"Plus, demons, not humans," Sam added. "That probably makes a difference, too."

"Jesus," Dean said, pacing across the room now. "Okay, so it's already killed fuck knows how many people. And we don't know exactly how many it needs to kill to 'balance the scales' or whatever. It's gotta be close by now. And Tessa can't stop it."

"We have to stop it," Sam said, a touch wildly. "We need to find a way to stop it from killing more people."

"And get it out of her," Dean added.

"And kill it," Sam finished.

Dean exhaled slowly and came to sit down on one of the beds, facing Sam. "Well, fuck."

~*~

Dean had wanted to start looking for a way to deal with everything immediately, but Sam had put his foot down very firmly. Dean might be determined to just ignore the whole thing and pretend it had never happened, but Sam couldn't forget how close his brother had come to dying that evening. He kept seeing it in his mind, playing on a permanent loop: the car slamming into Dean, his brother flying through the air and crashing to the ground, the horrible rasp as he fought for breath, the blood spreading across the road...

And no matter how good a front Dean put up, Sam knew he was exhausted. He'd been tired even before the whole near-death experience, and Sam was fairly certain that had taken its toll too, despite the fact that the Reaper had healed him. Nonetheless, persuading Dean to get some sleep had been a trial, and Sam had been forced to agree to them grabbing just a few hours and then getting up early to start researching.

It wasn't that Sam wasn't desperate to get started too - he wanted to find a way to kill the demon so badly that he could almost taste it - but watching Dean slipping away from him that evening had terrified him, had dragged up the memories of the hospital, when he'd thought he was losing his brother forever.

It had taken Sam a long time to fall asleep, and the images haunted his dreams.

They'd got up before five o'clock and huddled downstairs with cups of coffee while discussing the options.

"The first thing we'll need is some way to bind the Reaper and the demon," Sam said thoughtfully.

Dean jerked his head meaningfully towards the ceiling. "The Key of Solomon worked pretty well on its kid. Think it'd hold Daddy Demon too?"

Sam pursed his lips. "It might, I guess. We could ask Bobby. It's a very old and powerful symbol, so... We'd have to take other precautions too, but it could be part of the solution. That still leaves us with the question of how to bind a Reaper, though."

"Do we need to bind her?" Dean asked. "I mean, it's the demon we want to trap, not her. There's no way we can just bind it?"

Sam exhaled sharply. "It's possessing her, Dean. It's inside her and it's using her. We need to bind them both until we can get it out of her, or there's too high a risk that we'll lose it."

Dean nodded in acceptance, although the way he rubbed his cheek told Sam that he wasn't entirely happy with the idea.

Despite the fact that she'd tried to _kill _him the previous evening.

"Wait," Dean said suddenly. "Hey, d'you remember Sue Ann LeGrange?"

"Of course I -" Sam stopped short. "Dean. No."

"There was a binding spell for a Reaper in that book," Dean said doggedly. "And we know it worked."

"Dean, that was dark magic! Evil!" Sam was feeling slightly sick just at the memory of the dark altar in Sue Ann's basement; the skull, the blood... "It involved _murder_, Dean. There's no way we could do anything like that. Besides, we burned the book."

"The book isn't an issue," Dean said dismissively. "I'm not saying I want us to go around killing people for the altar, but -"

"Of course the book would be an issue," Sam argued. "We wouldn't have a clue what we were getting ourselves into or what to do otherwise. But it's irrelevant, because -"

"Sam, trust me, we wouldn't need the book," Dean said with an irritated sigh. "Dude, right now I can quote from newspaper articles I glanced over when I was, like, ten, okay? I looked over the ritual at the time, I can write the whole thing down, word for word, if need be."

Sam stared at him. "I thought you said the memories were getting better."

"They are," Dean said nonchalantly. "They're not quite as... overwhelming, now. Doesn't mean they're gone, though. I can still remember things really vividly when I think of them. We should seriously have gone to Vegas, man, I reckon I could make a fortune at -"

"Dean, _don't_," Sam said, almost desperately. "This isn't funny."

Dean's expression hardened. "You see me laughing, Sammy? Look, don't freak over it, okay? It _is _much better, I promise. I've just... got a super-charged memory at the moment. And if that means we can use that binding spell, then we can consider ourselves lucky."

"You didn't see the altar, Dean," Sam said, focusing on the aspect of the conversation where he thought he stood a chance of making some headway. "There was some seriously dark magic involved. And I only glanced over the spell, but it definitely involved a murder. There's no way we can mess with something like that."

"Might be a way to fudge that part," Dean said stubbornly. "Let's at least keep it in mind, okay? So, bind the demon, bind Tessa. Then, what, exorcise it?"

Sam grimaced. "Holy water didn't do a damn thing to it back at the cabin. I mean, we could try; say, use that exorcism we worked on that demon on the plane, force it out of her and try to banish it back to hell."

"But holy water worked on that demon," Dean pointed out. "I gotta say it, Sam, I don't think that'll be good enough for this bastard. And I'd kinda like something a bit surer than a wing and a prayer if we try to take it out, personally."

"What we really need is the Colt," Sam muttered. Then a thought struck him. "Hey. You think there's a chance we could find it?"

Dean looked startled for a moment before his face took on the guarded expression that Sam hated. "Sam, I'm pretty sure Dad..."

"No, I get that," Sam said hurriedly, not wanting Dean to have to say the words. He could still remember all too well Dean finally breaking down, the way he'd felt about that exchange. _What's dead should stay dead_. Sam never wanted to see that look on his brother's face again. "But if the demon's still here, still possessing the Reaper - maybe the Colt is still here too?"

"What, you think it's just lying around at the hospital somewhere?"

Sam shrugged. "Well, it might be?"

Somewhat to Sam's surprise, Dean didn't shoot down the idea out of hand. "Maybe. I think you're right, the demon hasn't left here since, so it's not impossible. But it's a demon, Sam. It could have found some way to destroy it. And even if the Colt is there, it's a pretty safe bet it's well hidden and well protected."

"You got any better ideas?" Sam asked bluntly. "It's the only thing we know of that will kill this thing, Dean. I'm not saying finding it will be easy, but we've got to try."

Dean nodded, though he still didn't look entirely convinced. "Let's try to figure out the rest of it first, okay? We can start going through the journal and Bobby's books, look online too. How about you concentrate on ways to bind the demon and drive it out of her, and I'll work on how we're going to bind her."

"Sounds like a plan," Sam said.

He started off with one stack of Bobby's books, while Dean settled down across the room with another stack. Demons were one of the things Bobby had specialised in over the years, and he had a lot of amazing information in his books. Sam was half-hoping that they would be able to spend an extra day there, once this was all over, so he could go through some of them and take some notes.

But then he stumbled across some sigils that looked as though they could be powerful enough to be useful, and forgot everything else as he snapped into research mode.

When he glanced up an hour later to check on Dean's progress, he couldn't help but roll his eyes and smile at the sight of his brother sound asleep, his head pillowed on his arms resting on the table. And while normally Sam would have smacked Dean upside the head and told him to get back to work, his brother could definitely use the rest. So, shaking his head slightly, Sam turned back to his research.

~*~

"Dean."

He crossed the room to sit down beside her on the hospital bed. "Tessa."

She smiled at him, but her usual unnatural serenity seemed marred. "I think your subconscious might let me through more, now that you know this is real. And your memory is overactive enough at the moment to remember your dreams when you wake."

"Well, that's good," Dean said, without paying much attention. "We think we figured out what it's trying to do. It's trying to bring back its children, isn't it? The ones I killed?"

"Yes," Tessa said softly. "It's taking lives that shouldn't be taken, ending them before they are due to end. It's stealing lives without balancing the scales. It's almost killed enough to allow it to tip the balance and bring back one of its children, now... You might want to avoid watching the news when you wake up, Dean. It knew I'd spoken to you, although I was able to prevent it from overhearing what we said. It's not holding back now."

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered, getting back up off the bed and pacing across the hospital room. "So we gotta move fast."

"Very fast," Tessa agreed. "It's getting stronger and I'm... growing weaker. I won't be able to restrain it at all, soon."

Something in her voice made him turn. "It's hurting you." Dean wondered why that had never even occurred to him until now: he supposed he'd somehow assumed Reapers did not feel pain.

Tessa met his gaze, appearing almost calm despite the topic. "We thrive on the balance. When that is disrupted, we feel pain, yes."

Dean gritted his teeth and stepped closer to her. "Sam and I, we're looking into ways to trap the bastard and force it out of you. We're going to help you."

She smiled at him. "No, Dean. We're going to help each other."

He stared at her. "Okay, call me paranoid, but since you almost killed me last night, you mind telling me exactly what 'helping' means here?"

Tessa chuckled softly at his discomfort, before her smile turned dangerous. "Can you and your brother free me from the demon?"

"Well, we're still working on the details," Dean admitted, "but we've a few ideas on how to maybe do it, yeah. Why?"

"Because if you can," Tessa said, her normally gentle voice now steely, "I can kill the demon."


	5. Chapter 5

It took Dean a few moments to find his voice. "You can do that?"

"Normally, no," Tessa admitted. "Demons aren't alive in the same way that humans are. But demons aren't permitted to possess Reapers. It's broken the rules, and that allows me to do so, too."

"And that means you can kill it, just like that?" Dean asked sceptically. "Don't mean to sound a cynic here, but I've gone up against this demon before, and in my experience, killing it never turns out to be quite as simple as people make it sound beforehand."

Tessa folded her hands primly in her lap. "Simple is not the word I'd choose. All the people it's killed who should have lived - their lifeforces have been building up. I have to release that power somehow."

"You can't... I don't know, give it back? Bring... bring them back?" Dean asked, striving to remain casual despite the faint hope growing in his mind. _Dad_...

"No," Tessa said, shaking her head firmly, her eyes too knowing for his comfort. "They're dead, Dean. Bringing them back at this point... some of them have been dead for months. It would be a very bad idea. No, they're gone. I need to find another channel for that power. The demon wants to use the energy to bring back its children, but if I can get free, I can force that power on it, instead."

"Give it life," Dean said slowly. "And if it's alive, properly alive..."

"It can be killed," Tessa said, her smile deadly. "Properly killed."

Dean shook his head. "Still sounds a bit too good to be true. You sure you can do that? And breaking the rules like that won't come back to bite you in the ass?"

"It won't be easy, but I can do it," Tessa said serenely. "And I have a great deal of leeway now that the demon has broken the rules so brazenly. It won't cause me any problems." She smiled at him suddenly. "It's very sweet of you to worry, though."

Dean did his best to pretend he hadn't even heard that. "Okay. Well, that's good. And it saves us tearing the hospital apart looking for the Colt, too. So all we need to worry about is finding a way to bind you, and the demon, because if all we're doing is banishing the demon out of you rather than sending it back to hell, we've got rituals that can do that much."

"There isn't much time, Dean," Tessa warned him. "It only needs to kill one or two more people to bring back one of its children, and soon the imbalance will leave me too weak to fight it. Perform the rituals at midnight tonight - I'll save my energy for then. All right?"

Dean took a deep breath and released it, thinking. That didn't leave them very long to research and set things up, but it would have to do. Time was running out. "All right. Midnight tonight."

"Good," Tessa said, and patted the bed beside her. "You should lie down again, Dean, and get some proper sleep."

"What, you channeling Sam now or something?" Dean grumbled, but he did lie down.

Her hand grazed lightly across his hair, and he let his eyes slide shut. "Something like that, Dean."

~*~

"Dean. Dean?"

Dean sat up abruptly, and the hand that had been lightly touching his head fell away.

He was sitting at the table, books stacked around him, and judging from appearances, he must have fallen asleep in the middle of researching.

Sam sat down beside him. "Maybe you should go back to bed, lie down and get some proper sleep. Because I don't think the table can be all that comfortable, man."

Dean scrubbed his hands across his face, and told himself firmly that the echo of Tessa's words was nothing but coincidence. "No time for any more sleep. We've only got until midnight, Sam."

He reported what Tessa had told him, and explained her plan to kill the demon. When he finished, Sam was silent.

"Well?" Dean asked finally. "What do you think?"

Sam bit his lip, then sighed. "I don't know. I mean, yeah, I guess it sounds like a good plan."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Dude, I'm not the psychic wonderboy here, but even I could hear the 'but' on the end there."

Sam got to his feet and started pacing across the room. Dean leaned back in his chair and watched him narrowly.

"It's just..." Sam gestured helplessly. "I don't know, Dean, it just sounds too simple. We just stand back and let her kill it?"

"I'm thinking we'll have our work cut out for us with binding it and driving it out of her," Dean said.

Sam was still pacing. "And you trust her? I mean, we don't really know anything about her. She's a Reaper, Dean, we don't even know what she's thinking. She could just be saying this so we'll drive the demon out of her. We don't know she'll actually be able to kill it."

"It's been possessing her for months, weakening her and driving her slowly mad, using her to kill people," Dean said, his voice dangerously calm. "She says she'll do it, I believe her. And normally you would too, so you want to tell me what your real problem is?"

Sam finally stopped pacing and lowered his head in defeat. "I just... I don't know. I guess I always thought we'd be the ones to kill it. You know?"

Dean frowned. "Sammy -"

"I know it's stupid," Sam said. "I just... I used to imagine it, you know, after - after Jess died. Killing the thing that did it. Just sitting back and waiting for something else to _maybe _do it feels -"

"We won't be sitting back, Sam," Dean said firmly. "I wasn't kidding about us having our work cut out. But the important thing is that it dies, right? And it's not like we won't be involved. Besides, Sam, I gotta admit, when it comes to killing something, I've got a bit more faith in a Reaper than that Colt."

Sam nodded silently.

"We're gonna get that son of a bitch, Sammy," Dean said quietly. "Let's concentrate on getting it, okay? That's what matters."

Sam nodded again. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. So." He visibly pulled himself together, and Dean relaxed slightly at the sight. "So, the first part of the exorcism we used on the plane that time should be enough to banish the demon out of her. I don't think the second part would have been powerful enough to send it back to hell, but since we don't need to worry about that, it should work."

"Should do," Dean agreed. "You find anything useful on binding it to begin with?" He glanced at his watch, suddenly realising he had no idea how long he'd been asleep. It was almost eleven a.m. "Jesus, you should have woken me earlier. You speak to Bobby about it while I was out?"

"Yeah, I spoke to him," Sam said, pointedly ignoring the comment about waking Dean up. "He thinks the Key of Solomon should work, if we set up wards in a circle around it to help fence the demon in. We'd have to wait until it was actually inside the circle before we could close it, though, and we'd have to lure it inside in the first place."

"We can't do it here," Dean realised abruptly. "It knows about the Key here, what happened to Meg, remember? We're going to need to find somewhere else to do this."

"Bobby and I already talked about that," Sam agreed. "He's got a few ideas about where we could do it. But we're still going to have the problem of getting the demon inside the circle."

"That's where Tessa comes in," Dean said. "She can overpower it for a little while. We get her inside the circle and bind her there, then close it to bind the demon too... should work."

Sam pursed his lips. "We're really going to be depending on her for this whole thing. You definitely sure you trust her enough for this? I mean..."

"Sam..." Dean shook his head. "It's been possessing her for months. It's hurting her. She's got every reason to want to take it out, too. I know you feel weird about trusting someone you've never even seen, but yeah, I trust her with this."

Sam sighed. "Okay. Okay, fine. So we still need a binding to use on her?"

"Summoning and binding, preferably," Dean agreed, looking down at the notes he'd been scribbling before sleep had taken him. "I think I'm maybe getting somewhere with that, but I need to work on it a bit more."

"I'll help," Sam offered. "I think I've just about got things sorted for binding the demon."

Dean looked at him askance. "No offence, dude, but I'd rather you sounded a bit more sure than that."

Sam laughed. "Fine. The binding is definitely sorted. Show me what you've got on the Reaper front."

Dean began shuffling through his notes. "I copied down the ritual that Sue Ann LeGrange used. And yeah, I know," he continued before Sam could interrupt, "it's pretty dark in places, so I started looking for an alternative in Bobby's books. But there's nothing in there specifically for Reapers, Sam. Lots of bindings for other creatures, but I wouldn't trust any of them to work on Reapers - I mean, they're notorious for being able to go anywhere, right? They're harder to bind than just about anything."

"Yeah, death can go anywhere," Sam agreed absently, reading through Dean's notes. "Shit. We have to find something, Dean. I know you trust her, but we need to bind her until we've performed the exorcism."

"I get that, Sam," Dean said impatiently. "Before I fell asleep, I was looking at the old books Bobby inherited from Pastor Jim. And there are a couple of bindings there that we _might_ be able to adapt enough to hold a Reaper. But like I said, I need to work on them a bit more before I'm sure."

"OK, let me see," Sam said.

"Nah, I got it," Dean said, waving him off. "Why don't you talk to Bobby about where we can do this shit? And start scoping out supplies. I'll keep on looking at this."

Sam frowned. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Dean said firmly. At Sam's odd expression, he added, "What?"

"You're volunteering to do research, Dean," Sam said, looking almost... weirded-out.

"What?" Dean asked defensively. "I do research."

Sam's eyebrows somehow managed to shoot up even higher. "Dean, you've never liked research. You do it when you've no choice, but if you can get out of it, you do. So what gives?"

"Nothing gives," Dean said. "I just really think I'm getting somewhere here, and someone needs to take care of the other stuff."

When Sam still didn't look convinced, Dean sighed. "Look, Sam, normally you're way better at research than me, okay? I know that, believe me. You've got those geek boy skills. But the way my memory is working right now... I can remember everything I read, and where I read it. I can remember everything I've _ever_ read that might be useful, as well as everything Dad or Pastor Jim or anyone ever mentioned. So I can handle this part of the research, okay?"

Sam blinked. "Dean, I wasn't trying to say -"

"I know that," Dean interrupted hastily. "Just... like I say, I'm think I'm getting somewhere. There was other stuff in Sue Ann's book about Reapers, not just that ritual, and the only place that information's located is my head, right now. Besides," he added more quietly, "I need to be sure that whatever we do to bind her doesn't... cause any problems for her. I owe her that much."

Sam was frowning. "Dean..." He hesitated, and Dean glanced across to see what the problem was, only to regret it immediately when Sam continued, "You know it's not your fault, right? What's happened to her, I mean."

_Fuck_. Why did Sam have to spring these things on him? Dean knew damn well it was his fault, and Sam had caught him off-guard enough that it must have shown in his eyes for a moment, because Sam reached across and grabbed his shoulder, shaking his head almost desperately. "_Dean _-"

Dean pulled away sharply, looking anywhere but at his brother. "Drop it, Sam."

Sam's arm fell back to his side, but Dean didn't need to be looking at him to know what the expression on his face would be. Dean kicked back his chair and got to his feet, needing space.

"Dean, we've got to talk about this," Sam said softly. "I know you don't want to, so I've let it go until now, but you can't go on blaming yourself for this."

Dean paced to the other side of the room, reaching out to grasp one of the bookcase shelves tightly. "I said _drop it_. We don't have time for this."

"And if you have your way, we'll never have time for this," Sam said cynically. "No, Dean. I'm not dropping it or letting you change the subject this time. We can't go walking into this with your head all messed up, because I don't want you taking some stupid risk and getting yourself _killed_ because of some stupid, misplaced sense of guilt about something you had no control over!"

Dean stared at the bookshelf, noting abstractedly how white his knuckles had turned where they gripped it, and wondering distantly how much pressure it could withstand before it tore apart.

"None of it was your fault," Sam insisted, his voice full of the stubborn, steely determination Dean knew all too well. "You didn't make that deal, Dean. You didn't ask Dad to make the deal. You didn't even know he was making it. There was nothing you could have done, and it is _not your fault_. And if I've got to sit here and tell you that from now until midnight to get that through your thick head, I'll do it."

Silence descended. Dean didn't turn around.

After a moment, Sam sighed in what sounded like defeat. "Okay, I'm done. You want to punch me again now?"

Dean flinched and closed his eyes. It took a moment for him to find his voice. "No."

Another moment of silence, then Dean heard Sam get to his feet.

"Okay. I'm going to talk to Bobby and then scope out some sites, like you said. Call me if you find anything that we can use for the binding." Dean could hear Sam's footsteps crossing the room towards him as he spoke. Sam laid one hand on Dean's back for a moment as he passed and Dean tensed, but then Sam moved past and out the front door.

Dean listened to the door close behind Sam, then opened his eyes again and slowly, painfully unclenched his hand from around the shelf.

He couldn't quite face the research again immediately, couldn't just settle back down at the table where he and Sam had been sitting so close just a few minutes earlier, so he stood there stupidly for a moment and then shuffled through to the kitchen to make himself a mug of black coffee. It tasted bitter and burned his tongue, and it was perfect.

Once it was gone, he made himself another mug, and forced himself to pick up the notes and books from the table and sit down at the other side of the room to resume working. And by the time his mug was half-empty, he managed to force himself to stop thinking about Sam and what he'd said and instead actually start concentrating on the research again.

An hour later, he slammed Pastor Jim's book shut in defeat. There had been two bindings where he'd had some hope that they could be adapted to hold a Reaper, but they were a bust. The first wasn't strong enough, and the second was simply too specific, although he'd wasted a good half-hour trying to pin down a way to adapt it to their needs.

He ran a hand across his face, then sighed and turned back to his notes on Sue Ann's ritual.

He'd avoided it thus far, partly because Sam was so against it, and partly because he hated to think of using something so dark to trap Tessa. But it was the only binding ritual they knew of that would definitely work. And okay, Dean was far from keen on the idea of walking outside and murdering someone for it, but if he could find a way around that...

It took him another hour to analyse the binding and break it down into its various components. They'd had to mix-and-match rituals in the past, when dealing with things they hadn't seen before or which didn't respond to the usual tricks, so it wasn't an entirely unfamiliar process. But Dean had always preferred the cool certainty of a gun in his hand to this kind of work, Sam hadn't been wrong about that.

Finally, however, he thought he had it figured it out. The real problem was with the murder: Sam hadn't been wrong about that, either. It was at the very centre of the binding - a death to call the Reaper and provide the power for the binding itself. Most of the rest of the stuff - the black altar, the blood, the skull - simply served to channel the sacrificed life. The other things Sue Ann had used, the necklace, the chant, had been to force the Reaper to obey her, and they wouldn't need to do that.

Which left the problem of how they could substitute something else for the murder when it had such a pivotal role in the binding.

Dean sighed and took a gulp of his long-since-cold coffee, grimacing slightly at the taste. Possibly he should just call Sam and tell him he couldn't find a way to replace the sacrifice -

_Sacrifice_.

Mind racing, Dean slowly set down his mug. _Son of a bitch_. Could it really be that simple?

Well, simple might not be the right word. But it would be a solution - if the binding would allow it.

It took another twenty minutes of poring over his notes before Dean leaned back in his chair and ran one shaking hand over his face. He was as satisfied as he could be that it would work, that the binding ritual would be just as effective as it would with a murder. And this way they wouldn't need half of the crap that Sue Ann had used.

Christ. Keeping this plan from Sam would be all but impossible. But he would have to find a way, because if Sam got any idea of what Dean was planning...

Sam would kill him himself.

~*~

Sam took one last look around the room and nodded to himself. It would do.

He pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial for Dean. It took a few moments for Dean to answer, and he sounded slightly distracted when he did. "Hey."

"Hey," Sam said. "So I think I've found a good place for us to do this."

There was a slight pause, and Sam found himself frowning in concern. He'd known how uncomfortable his brother had been with their conversation earlier, but he'd hoped it would help Dean to start getting himself together, not make things worse. He hadn't been kidding that he was worried about what would happen if Dean walked into this confrontation blaming himself for everything that had happened.

He hadn't forgotten how the demon had gone at Dean before, back in the cabin. If they were going up against it again, he needed to know Dean would be able to handle it.

"Where?" Dean asked, just before Sam could ask if he was okay.

"An old house Bobby knew, just across the state line in Missouri, about half an hour away," Sam said. "Far enough away from civilisation that we shouldn't get bothered if things get noisy. And it's pretty... I don't know, neutral. It's been empty for a few years, but it doesn't have that dark feel about it, you know? There's nothing here. And plenty of space for us to do our thing."

"Sounds good," Dean agreed. "You gonna start setting things up there, then?"

"Yeah, it's going to take me a while to paint the Key of Solomon on the ceiling," Sam said, glancing up ruefully. "You having any luck there?"

Again, Dean hesitated a little longer than Sam would have expected before answering. "Actually, yeah, I think so."

"Yeah? One of those rituals you mentioned in Pastor Jim's book pan out?" Sam asked.

"No, they turned out to be a bust in the end," Dean replied dismissively. "So... don't freak out on me, dude, but I looked at Sue Ann's ritual again. And I think I've figured out how to adapt it. No need for a murder after all."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "You 'think'? No offence, dude, but I'd rather you sounded a bit more sure than that," he said teasingly, throwing Dean's words from earlier in his face.

"I'm pretty sure," Dean said, sounding distracted, and Sam's eyes narrowed at the realisation that Dean hadn't even picked up that Sam was repeating his own words back to him. "I need to look into it a bit more, but yeah, pretty sure."

"Well, that's good," Sam said, not entirely certain whether he should be trying to sound reassuring or not. "What's the work-around you've come up with?"

Another hesitation. "It's a bit too complicated to get into right now, Sam. And like I say, I want to look into it a little more. We can talk about it later, okay?"

"Okay, sure," Sam agreed, frowning slightly. "So you're going to carry on researching for a while?"

"And then drive into town to pick up some supplies," Dean confirmed, sounding a bit more normal now. "Anything you need me to pick up for the rest of the ritual?"

Sam considered, glancing around the room again. "No, I think either we've got what we need or Bobby has it. I'm going to need to pick up a few supplies now so I can paint the symbol, but that should be it."

"Right," Dean said. "I'll call you when I'm on my way out there, then, so you can give me directions."

"Sure," Sam said, still frowning. Something just felt... off. "Dean... are you okay?"

He knew it was a mistake the moment he asked. After their conversation that morning, Dean was unlikely to take any query like that well.

"For god's sake, Sam," Dean said, and the exasperation in his voice was the most Dean-like he'd sounded in the conversation so far. "When did you turn into such a girl? I'm fine, everything's fine, now can we drop the touchy-feely crap and get to work?"

Sam laughed a little. Maybe his brother was okay after all. "Fine, then get to work, bitch, because if you think I'm going to do all of the work out here setting this up..."

"Yeah, I should be so lucky," Dean muttered. "Get moving, asshole."

Sam shook his head and hung up.

~*~

It was later than Sam had expected before Dean called again. It had taken him several hours to paint the Key and be satisfied that it was entirely accurate: it was difficult to judge when you were balancing precariously on a ladder, so there had been a lot of starting and stopping while he climbed down to check how it was looking. Not to mention the problems caused by the cast on his wrist. Bobby hadn't hung around after they'd made the trip to pick up the ladder and paint, and Sam could really have used Dean's help with the Key.

Still, Sam reasoned, if Dean had possibly found a way to make the binding ritual work, that had to take priority. And if Dean was, for once, being properly thorough with his research, then Sam could only be glad that one of his pointed comments about information being power had actually gotten through.

Sam was in the process of mapping out a circle on the floor, a little wider than the Key above, when his cell finally rang.

"OK, Sammy, where in the hell is this house of yours?"

Sam started laughing. "I thought you were going to call for directions before you set off?"

"Yeah, well," Dean muttered, "I had to stop in town for a few things, so I decided to wait until I was on my way out, and then I figured - stop laughing, or I'm eating your half of the food before I get there, I swear."

Sam continued laughing. "You want directions, or are you going to carry on trusting in your miraculous powers to figure out the location of some random house you've never seen before without them?"

"Bitch," Dean said without heat. "Okay, hit me."

Sam rattled off the directions, and added "Better get your ass in gear, it's starting to get late."

"I know," Dean said softly, then continued in a more normal voice, "See you in half an hour or so, then."

Knowing Dean's driving as he did, Sam wasn't really surprised that it was only twenty minutes later that he heard a car pulling up outside. He crossed to one of the windows to double-check it was Dean, even knowing the sound of the Impala's engine as he did, because the last thing they needed right then was for some long-lost owner or realtor or something to turn up, despite Bobby's assurances that the place had stood empty for years.

It was Dean, as he'd expected, although Sam frowned as his brother made no immediate move to get out of the Impala, but simply sat behind the wheel, staring out through the windscreen. And not even at the house, Sam noted - and suddenly the pieces fell into place. The memories. It had to be. Preparing to go up against the demon again was bound to be dredging up lots of very unpleasant memories for his brother, despite what Dean had said about them no longer being so overwhelming. That would explain how odd Dean had sounded on the phone that afternoon, why Dean had taken so long to head out to the house, why he was sitting staring into space again.

Sam bit his lip. He hadn't been kidding earlier: Dean needed to be on his game, going into this; they both did. But there didn't seem to be any way of delaying it that Sam could see. If what the Reaper had told Dean was true and the demon really only needed one or two more lives in order to bring back one of its 'children', then they simply couldn't afford to wait.

Dean abruptly climbed out of the car, and Sam decided to head outside and help him bring in the supplies. And try to find a subtle way of checking on his mental state.

Dean was already rummaging in the trunk, a rifle propping open the weapons compartment, by the time Sam reached him.

"Hey," Sam said, trying to sound unconcerned while watching Dean's face closely, "you finally found the place, then?"

Dean snorted and shoved a large sack of rock salt at him. "Keep it up and I really will eat your burger, Sam, don't think I won't."

Well, that at least was a fairly normal reaction, Sam thought. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Dean. You get everything we need?"

"Course I did," Dean said. "Burgers, fries, sodas -"

Sam smacked his arm, and Dean laughed. "Yeah, Sammy, I got everything we need. Make yourself useful and take that salt up while I grab some of the other stuff."

Greatly reassured by their banter, Sam headed back into the house with the salt. Perhaps Dean was right and he really was turning into a mother hen.

~*~

They ate first, before the food got completely cold, then continued to work on setting things up. Dean laid salt along the line of the circle Sam had chalked on the floor, leaving a half-metre-long gap on the east side which they would only be able to close once the demon was inside. Then he did the same with holy water. Sam, meanwhile, painstakingly chalked Devil's Trap sigils at the compass-point corners, then added some to the walls of the room for good measure.

They placed candles at the cardinal points of the circle last, then stood back to inspect their handiwork.

"Looks pretty good," Dean said finally.

Sam nodded in agreement. "We'll need to keep the supplies pretty near to the east corner so we can close the circle as quickly as possible. The Key should help to hold the demon, but..."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "That's going to be the tricky bit, I think. I should be able to summon Tessa directly into the circle, but it'll take me a minute or two to complete the binding, and when the demon realises what's going on, it's gonna fight her. If it overpowers her before I finish the binding and you close the circle, things could get nasty."

"So we move fast," Sam said, setting the sack of rock salt down a couple of metres away from the east corner. Dean set the bottles of holy water down beside it. "Okay, so what do we need to set up for the binding?"

"Not much, to be honest," Dean said, scratching his head a little awkwardly. "It's actually a pretty simple ritual, when you don't need all the dark shit to channel the power from the murder."

"You still haven't told me how you're going to get round that," Sam reminded him.

Dean was silent for a moment. "Substitution," he said finally. "You remember all those lessons Pastor Jim gave us about analysing rituals, figuring out the purpose of each aspect? I guess they finally came in useful."

"I remember," Sam said, thinking back to Pastor Jim's patient voice as he made them analyse ritual after ritual. The theory was that if a ritual called for an element you couldn't provide, for whatever reason, you figured out what the purpose of that element was, then tried to identify what else could serve that purpose and substituted it instead. Sam had found the lessons fascinating; Dean had been chafing at the bit to do weapons practice instead, until their father had given him a firm lecture about the importance of what they were supposed to be learning. After that, Dean had gotten very good, very fast. "So you found a way to substitute the purpose of the murder in the binding?"

"Yeah," Dean said, then glanced abruptly at his watch. "Hey, I need to get a few more things out of the car. You want to dig out the text of the exorcism? If we're gonna do this at midnight, we'd better hurry up."

Sam frowned, but a glance at his own watch told him that Dean had a point: they only had another twenty minutes to finish getting everything in place.

By the time Dean returned with the last of their supplies and the first-aid kit, Sam had found the exorcism ritual and had had enough time to skim-read over it again. Even though he knew it almost by heart and planned to have the journal in front of him throughout, he'd learned that it was better to know a ritual too well than too little. Better safe than sorry.

He did raise an eyebrow at the first-aid kit when Dean set it down against the wall near the east side of the circle. "So you're optimistic about this whole plan, then?"

"Better safe than sorry," Dean said, mouth quirking in a grin with no amusement in it, and Sam felt suddenly chilled by the echo of his own thought from a moment ago.

"Dean..."

"Go ahead and light the candles," Dean ordered, taking off his leather jacket and dropping it in a far corner. "We'd better get started."

Sam forced down his sudden feeling of dread and obeyed, starting with the south candle and slowly working his way round to the east. Dean had moved into the centre of the circle, but Sam focused on the candles, then moved to stand beside the salt and holy water so that he would be in position when Dean completed the binding and it was time to close the circle. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Time?" Dean asked.

Sam glanced down at his watch. "11.59." He frowned and looked up at his brother, standing inside the circle near the south corner. "Did you take your watch -" He cut off suddenly at the sight of the knife Dean was holding: a consecrated, curved blade that Dean almost never used. His feeling of dread solidified.

"Sammy," Dean said sharply, drawing his attention back to his eyes. "Look, I need you to trust me, okay? I know what I'm doing. Don't panic, stick to the plan, and be careful."

The dread shifted into something close to full-blown panic. "Dean -"

The alarm on Sam's watch beeped. Midnight.

Dean brought the knife down and sliced deeply into his wrist.


	6. Chapter 6

_Fuck_, it hurt, though not quite as much as Sam near-screaming his name from outside the circle, and Dean knew his brother had finally figured it out.

How did you substitute for a murder?

By sacrificing the only life you had the right to bargain with, the only life a Reaper would accept from you: your own.

Blood was going everywhere, spurting from the wound, and Dean was fairly certain he'd succeeded in severing the artery. He crouched, using his blood to draw the Coptic cross at the south corner of the circle as quickly as possible, then at the west corner, then the north.

"Hurry, Dean," Tessa said behind him, her voice strained. "I can't hold it much longer."

Dean moved quickly out through the gap they'd left in the circle and used his blood to daub the final Coptic cross at the east corner from the outside, then stumbled back, gasping, cradling his left wrist to his chest. It hurt like a son of a bitch, and his heart was already starting to pound.

Sam was instantly at his side, and Dean had to look away from the expression on his brother's face.

At that moment, Tessa screamed, and Dean snapped his gaze up to look at her.

She was standing in the centre of the circle, covered in his blood - not surprising, Dean thought, the stuff was gushing fucking _everywhere_, like some kind of chainsaw massacre or something - her head thrown back as she screamed.

Then her scream cut off as her head snapped back down, and her eyes were gleaming gold.

"_Sammy_!" Dean yelled.

For a moment, he was afraid that he'd miscalculated, that the shock of what he'd done had frozen Sam. Perhaps it had been a mistake not to warn Sam about his plan, but he was still fairly certain that his brother would never have allowed him to take that kind of risk. Even though there had been no other option.

But then Sam jumped forward with the rock salt to start closing the circle, and Dean let out a relieved breath. Without looking away from his brother, he groped one-handed in the first-aid kit for a bandage.

Inside the circle, the demon was snarling and trying to free itself from the power of the Key above it. It had obviously identified the exit they'd left on the east side as the circle's weak point, and kept lunging towards it, trying to break out.

Sam dropped the salt and snatched up a bottle of holy water, crouching down to close that layer of the circle too.

It happened in slow motion, in one of those horrifically suspended moments where Dean could see what was about to happen but couldn't move fast enough to prevent it. The demon had managed to fight its way right to the eastern edge of the circle and was reaching out -

\- and of course Sam couldn't see it, Dean realised belatedly, it was possessing a Reaper, Sam couldn't see it because he wasn't dying -

And either Sam leaned a little too far forward or the demon broke through the circle at last, because somehow it managed to grab him around the neck with one hand and lift him into the air, while its other hand cradled the side of his head in a horribly familiar gesture.

Sam gave a strangled gasp and dropped the bottle of holy water.

Dean was already on his feet and rushing forward as fast as he could, but too slow, _too slow_. He snatched up the half-empty bottle and threw the contents at the demon, which flinched -

\- and then _threw_ Sam impossibly hard against the wall.

Dean heard the sound of bones snapping, and lost it.

He tried to lunge at the demon, forgetting all about the plan, focused only on trying to kill it with his bare hands and blood and fury, but ran smack into the barrier that had formed around the circle, repelling him. He fought against it for a second before his mind cleared enough for him to realise that some of the holy water must have splashed onto the remaining gap and closed the circle completely.

The demon smiled at him.

Dean abandoned his struggle and ran to his brother's side.

~*~

Sam groaned and forced himself to his feet. _Christ_, that had hurt like a son of a bitch. He'd been fairly certain about a dozen of his bones had shattered when thin air had grabbed him and then flung him into that wall, but though he was a bit dizzy, he felt much better now that he was standing up.

The demon was standing inside the circle, and Sam guessed that meant Dean had managed to close it after Sam had been taken out.

So that was what Tessa looked like. Explained a thing or two about why his brother had been so worried about the possibility of hurting her, Sam thought sardonically. The gold eyes really didn't suit her, though.

He stared at the thing that had killed his mother and his girlfriend, and felt a smile gradually spread across his face. They'd trapped it now. They'd actually _got _it.

The demon met his gaze and slowly smiled back.

Sam ignored it and headed across to the other side of the room, where he'd set their father's journal well out of harm's way, open to the page with the exorcism. He tried to pick it up -

\- and his hand went straight through it.

Sam stared at it for a moment, then slowly turned to look across the room, where Dean, covered with blood and cursing, was crouched... over Sam's body.

_Oh, fuck._

The demon's smile widened.

Sam walked slowly back across the room towards his brother. It was weird as hell to see his own body lying there, covered in Dean's blood and his own, still and pale. To see how many broken bones he obviously had, even if he couldn't feel them at the moment.

"Sammy," Dean was saying, his voice strained and desperate. "Sammy, come on, hold on, open your eyes. Come on, man, don't do this, don't you _dare_ do this." His good hand was pressed to the pulse point in Sam's neck. "Keep breathing for me, Sam, come on."

Oh, this was not good at all.

The demon started laughing softly, and the sound recalled Sam to the problem at hand.

Well, one of the problems, Sam amended cynically. They had a real range to choose from by this point.

"Dean," he said, and when Dean did not react, he tried again, louder. "Dean! _Dean_!" His brother had said that Sam had occasionally seemed to pick up on things he had said while he was out of his body back in the hospital, so it was worth a try, right? "Dean! You have to perform the exorcism, man! Come on, _think_!"

Dean didn't respond, still frantically urging Sam to hold on, and putting pressure on the worst of his wounds.

Sam looked around wildly. The circle and the Key were imprisoning the demon for now, but they wouldn't hold forever. They had to perform the exorcism quickly, before the demon managed to break out.

It caught his eye and laughed some more.

The realisation hit Sam like a blow to the chest. They weren't performing an exorcism on a human: they were performing it on a _Reaper_. He was possibly better placed to perform the ritual now than he had been when he was in his body. At least now he could see what he was working on.

The problem was going to be throwing holy water on the Reaper. If his hands were passing straight through things... Well, there was only one way to find out. Sam rushed to the bottles of holy water still stacked beside the rock salt, but found to his frustration that he couldn't even touch them, never mind pick them up - _let alone_ unscrew the lid, he realised suddenly.

He glared at the demon. It was still smiling cruelly at him, Tessa's slender form drenched in Dean's blood and -

Sam felt his mouth open. The moments just before the demon had thrown him were blurry but he was almost sure that...

He checked where the bottle of holy water was lying on the ground, and knew that wasn't where he'd dropped it.

Dean had thrown the holy water at the demon to make it release Sam.

Sam grinned fiercely, and started chanting.

~*~

Dean was trying frantically to stabilise his brother. The broken bones were bad, and he'd hit double digits before losing count of them, but the fact that Sam was losing a lot of blood from his head and side was the greater cause for alarm. The head wound wasn't quite so worrying: Dean knew damn well how badly head wounds bled even when they were just a scratch - this was _not _a scratch, though Dean was trying not to think about that - but he needed to get the bleeding from Sam's side under control fast.

And that was all on top of whatever the demon might have done while it'd had its hands on Sam. Given that it was possessing a Reaper, that was something else Dean was trying not to think about too much right now.

Sam's pulse was faint and alarmingly rapid, and Dean was about as close to panic as he'd ever been.

Fuck, this wasn't how it had been meant to go.

He was starting to feel dizzy, but wasn't sure whether that was a byproduct of his own blood loss, which he still hadn't had a chance to bring under control, or his panic about Sam.

Somewhere behind him, Tessa/the demon screamed, and Dean was about to spare a glance back over his shoulder to see what was going on when Sam's pulse skipped a beat beneath his fingers. And then the next beat didn't come.

"_No_!" Dean yelled, lowering his head to check Sam's breathing, but there was nothing.

It was only the first-aid training that had been drilled into him since childhood that enabled him to keep his head. He didn't even think, just reacted as he'd been taught, breathing once, twice into his brother's mouth and then starting the chest compressions, pressing as hard as he could, ignoring the agony in his left wrist as the bleeding, which had slowed, started to gush again.

He'd never done this for Sam before. For their father, once, and for several civilians in the past, and he knew that he'd been resuscitated this way several times too, but he'd never before failed Sam so badly that he'd had to resort to this.

_Sammy. Oh god, Sammy, hold on, please_.

Thirty compressions, and he lowered his head to breathe into Sam's mouth again, _willing _his brother to wake up and make some kind of crap joke about not being that easy a date, or hell, even to have a chick-flick moment, anything so long as he _woke up_.

Compressions again, and they still hurt like a son of a bitch, but the pain was good.

Over the rushing in his ears he slowly became aware of Tessa's voice behind him in the circle, and his first thought was that somehow Sam had pulled off the exorcism, until he realised he couldn't understand any of the words, and it wasn't because his focus was so shot. The demon was chanting, not in English or even Latin, but in some horrible language that sent chills straight through to Dean's bones.

He breathed twice into Sam's mouth again, then risked a glance over his shoulder as he resumed the compressions.

The demon was chanting, its hands stretched above its head, still dripping with Dean's own blood. The air within the circle was starting to shimmer hazily, like it would above a fire.

Dean stared at it dumbly for a moment, arms still automatically continuing the heart massage, before he realised what was happening.

_"It only needs to kill one or two more people in order to bring back one of its children"_, Tessa had said.

And Sam was... no, not that, never that, Dean refused to even _think _that, but his heart had stopped (like Dean's had in the hospital, and he'd come back, and Dean was clinging on to that thought) and possibly... possibly that was enough to tip the scales.

He had to do something to stop it.

He had to carry on breathing for Sam.

He couldn't do both.

~*~

Sam was on his knees, trying to continue choking out the words of the exorcism. It was growing harder by the second: he'd felt the shock of his heart stopping, felt the world grow hazy and fade in and out oddly for a few moments before it stabilised enough for him to continue chanting.

And as he'd done so, he'd realised that the demon was chanting now, too. The realisation of what was happening, that it was trying bring back one of its children, spurred him on. If he couldn't complete the exorcism before it succeeded...

He could see that Dean had also figured out what was going on. He hadn't stopped trying to resuscitate Sam, but he was staring over his shoulder at the demon, and his expression made Sam wish desperately that Dean could see him, that he could tell him it was okay.

All he could do was concentrate and try to chant faster.

The air inside the circle was shimmering with the power the demon was channelling, and Sam could see the glow of the energy expanding. He was pretty sure that in a moment or two the power would shatter the circle completely, and then the demon would be entirely free.

Or at least it would be if this exorcism didn't work.

"_Et fortitudinem levi sue, __benedictus deus, gloria patri_!"

For a horrible moment, Sam thought it hadn't worked, but then the demon broke off in mid-chant and screamed. Black mist poured from Tessa's mouth, filling the circle, and Sam took what felt like his first deep breath in hours.

Tessa finally stopped screaming, though Sam felt as though the echo was still vibrating through him, and stood gasping for breath in the centre of the circle. She met his eyes for a moment, looking shaken but with a steely fury beneath that, then looked across to Dean, who was still working on Sam's body.

"Dean," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "Dean, I need you to release the binding."

Sam watched as she raised her arms above her head, the pose an unsettling echo of the demon's a few minutes earlier, and the shimmering in the circle intensified amid the swirling darkness. It took a moment for Sam to figure out what she was doing, but then he decided she was probably trying to seize control of the power the demon had raised.

"Dean," Tessa repeated again, her voice stronger now. "Dean, I need your help. Please, Dean. You have to release the binding."

~*~

Dean was pretty sure he was losing it. His head was spinning, though he didn't know whether that was due to the blood loss, Sam, or the fact that he was still trying to breathe for Sam. He had no idea how Tessa had managed to get free of the demon, but he did know that he couldn't leave his brother's side. He was breathing for Sammy: he couldn't just get up and walk away, not even to help Tessa.

"Please, Dean," Tessa said again. "Dean, that won't bring him back. I know you want to keep him with you, but that can't hold him for much longer."

"No," Dean choked out, shaking his head wildly and feeling dizzier. "No, shut up, don't say that. Sam, don't listen to her, don't listen. Come back to me."

"Dean, you have to release me," Tessa said, almost a command now. "Or the demon will repossess me. I can't hold it off for long. And this, all of this, it will have been for nothing. Everything you've sacrificed. All the sacrifices your brother has made. Your deaths will have been for nothing, Dean. You have to stop that from happening."

Tears were blinding him. It was true: he couldn't let that happen. But he couldn't just leave his brother, either.

"Dean, Sam is right here," Tessa said, her voice strained. "Out of his body, like you were in the hospital. You can't see him, but he's here."

"Stop that," Dean choked out, furious that she would _dare _to try to use Sam against him. "Don't you dare -"

"I wouldn't lie, Dean, not about this," Tessa said. "He's telling you to listen, to break the binding. You're the only one who can do it, Dean. Sam says... he says to tell you to 'get off your lazy ass and do your share of the work, jerk'."

The tears spilled over, and for a moment Dean couldn't see or hear anything. Then he breathed hard into Sam's mouth twice more - like a promise, like a warning, like a plea - and pulled himself roughly to his feet.

Staggering even the few metres to the circle was more difficult than he could have imagined, and he thought distantly that he was probably worse off with the blood loss than he'd realised. It hardly seemed to matter, though.

He dropped to the ground when he reached the bottles of holy water and gripped one awkwardly between his wounded hand and his chest, using his good hand to unscrew the lid, ignoring the trembling in his fingers. Then he upended it over the Coptic cross at the east corner of the circle.

He didn't even wait to see if it had worked before he started crawling back towards Sam.

~*~

Sam almost broke apart, watching his brother crawl back towards his body. He crossed the room to join him, sinking down to the ground as close to Dean as he could, and wished that he could reach out and touch him.

Dean was breathing for him again now, pressing on his chest, and Sam ached for him. It was too late, he knew that, and he knew that deep down Dean knew it too, but just couldn't accept it.

Judging by the amount of blood Dean was still losing and the horribly grey hue his skin had taken, though, Sam figured his brother would soon have his back on this, too. It shouldn't have been a comforting thought, Sam thought with a pang of guilt, but it was.

He glanced up, blinking away tears, and watched as Tessa stepped out of the circle, free of the binding. The shimmering light was now centred around her instead of filling the circle, where the black cloud that was the demon was still swirling, trapped. It was struggling to free itself again, Sam thought, watching it churn around and press against the east side of the circle where Tessa had passed over the boundary, but the circle seemed to be holding now, and Tessa appeared to be in control of the power the demon had raised before.

Tessa looked from the demon to Sam and Dean, and then back.

"Tessa," Dean choked out, and Sam turned his head to look at his brother, so close and yet so completely out of his reach. "Tessa, please. You've got to help Sammy."

"Dean," Sam whispered, aching, wishing he knew what he would say if Dean could hear him. _It's too late_, maybe, or _it's okay, Dean_, or _thank you for never giving up on me_. He didn't know.

"It's not that simple, Dean," Tessa said gently, her voice serene again now. "Sam's almost gone."

"But he's _not_ gone!" Dean said vehemently, his voice shaking. "There's still time. And even if he were..."

_What's dead should stay dead_, Sam remembered. It was so fucking _typical _of Dean that he would apply that to himself but not Sam. It was everything he loved about his brother and everything that made him want to shake him until he _got it _all at once.

Tessa was looking at them. "Dean. Both of you are slipping away. If I use this power to heal you the two of you..."

"You won't have enough left to take out the demon," Sam whispered in realisation.

Dean had clearly figured it out too. "_Fuck_ the demon! It... God, Tessa, please. Help Sammy. If you're so set on killing the goddamn demon, then... Don't know if I can bargain with a life that's going your way anyway, but I'll try if I've got to."

"_No_!" Sam exclaimed, horrified. "Dean, no! Tessa, don't let him -"

"Can you bring back one?" Dean asked, unhearing. "Can you bring back Sammy and still take out the demon?" He was still performing CPR, still breathing for Sam after every thirty compressions. The bleeding from his wrist was slowing again, Sam saw, but he suspected that was probably not a good sign.

"No!" Sam said again, looking wildly between his brother and Tessa. "I'm not just letting you die, Dean!"

Tessa smiled sadly at them both. "I could, yes. It's possible."

"Do it," Dean ordered weakly, and it was no less a command because it was uttered in a whisper.

"No!" Sam yelled. "No, you can't! Tessa, no!"

"S'okay, Sammy," Dean murmured softly, almost as if he'd heard him. "S'okay."

"No, it's not," Sam choked out, unable to fight back his tears. "Dean, no, don't do this to me, c'mon, man. Forget the fucking demon. Please. Please don't leave me alone, Dean."

"Sam," Tessa murmured, and Sam turned to see her suddenly kneeling right in front of him. "Shh, it's okay."

She reached for his cheek, and though he shied away, she cradled his head gently in her hand.

And then everything went dark.

~*~

For a moment Dean thought he was so far gone that he was imagining it, but then Sam gasped into his mouth and Dean pulled back with a gasp of his own.

Sam was breathing, was actually gasping for air, and it was the sweetest sound Dean had ever heard. He bowed his head, almost laughing with relief, his good hand groping for Sam's pulse.

Tessa was touching Sam's head now, then she slid one hand down to touch his chest, over his heart, and Dean watched the colour flood back into his brother's skin.

_Thank god_.

"Thank you," he whispered aloud. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Tessa murmured softly.

He didn't have enough strength to raise his head again to look at her. But that was okay: he could see Sammy's chest rising and falling beneath him. He'd settle for that any day of the week.

Tessa's hand brushed gently through his hair, feather-light, then she tilted his head up until he met her eyes. They were sad and knowing and almost affectionate.

"Do it," Dean whispered.

Tessa smiled at him softly and shifted her hand to cradle his face. "Shhhh, Dean. I've got you."

Dean shut his eyes and fell into darkness.

~*~

"- you stubborn, pig-headed, contrary, suicidal bastard! And if you don't open your eyes this second, Dean, I'm going to shake you until your _teeth_ rattle, and then I'm going to call an ambulance and force them to admit you to hospital for a month, and then I'll make you _stay_ there instead of busting you out, you jerk, and that won't even _begin _to be payback for all the shit you've pulled tonight!"

Dean couldn't stop the smile spreading across his face. "Love you too, Sammy," he mumbled, and forced his eyes open.

He appeared to be alive, in spite of everything. In fact, he appeared to be collapsed on top of his brother, who was holding onto Dean's shoulders with a tightness that suggested he was desperate to either take a swing at him or pull him into a hug. Dean wouldn't have wanted to place a bet on which, right then.

Sam was smiling up at him, that wide, beaming grin that Dean basked in like the sun. And if Sam's eyes looked a little watery, well, Dean supposed he would let him away with it just this once. At least until Dean could see clearly again himself.

"Hey," Sam murmured, still smiling.

"Hey," Dean replied. He had a horrible suspicion that he was probably grinning like an idiot himself, but _damn_. Sam awake and breathing and smiling was a hell of a sight to wake up to.

He rolled off of Sam and onto the ground beside him. He was pretty certain he'd landed on a massive bloodstain, but a glance down confirmed that his clothes were a complete write-off anyway. Thank Christ he'd had the sense to take off his jacket before slitting his wrist, he thought absently.

Sam sat up next to him, looking around, and Dean sighed and forced himself into a sitting position too. Sam grabbed his arm to steady him, then gently turned the arm over to inspect the wrist Dean had slit. The wound was gone. The wrist was still covered in blood, so it was difficult to see, but Dean suspected there wouldn't even be a scar.

Dean gave Sam a cursory once-over as well. He'd lost track of how many of Sam's bones had been broken, but there had definitely been a couple of nasty breaks in his left arm, and Sam was using that arm naturally now.

"You okay?" Dean asked anyway, because he needed that reassurance, just this once.

"Yeah," Sam answered, smile softening. "Yeah, I'm okay. You?"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, seems so." He glanced around the room and stared at the circle. Or rather, where the circle had been. The salt had been scattered, the candles knocked over.

The demon was nowhere to be seen.

"It's gone," Sam said quietly. "I came round just in time to see the circle break, and then it went through the floor."

Dean glanced down at his bloodstained hands and said nothing.

After a long moment, Sam sighed. "Think Bobby'll come pick us up if we call him?"

"I'll drive," Dean said automatically, without looking up.

It was funny, the way you could almost _hear_ Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "Dean, I don't think either of us is in any condition to drive yet, even if Tessa did -"

"It's fine," Dean cut him off. "I can drive."

Sam evidently thought better of arguing with him, but his sigh made clear that he wanted to. "Fine, man, have it your way."

Dean forced himself to his knees, then grabbed the wall to pull himself up. Sam scrambled to his feet beside him, and Dean reached out instinctively to steady him for a moment as he swayed.

"You sure you're okay?" Dean asked. "We could swing by the hospital, get you checked out."

Sam cast him an irritated look. "Get both of us checked out, you mean."

Dean ignored that. "Do you want to?"

Sam hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah, I'm good. Let's just get out of here, go back to Bobby's, grab some sleep."

"Right," Dean agreed, and slowly started gathering up their supplies.

They didn't bother trying to clean up the room: it was pretty much a lost cause, and neither of them felt up to putting in the kind of effort that would be needed right then. They took their time gathering up their belongings and staggering out to the car.

Dean couldn't help but wince when he caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror as he slid into the driver's seat. He wasn't just a bit bloodied up, he was completely drenched in it.

"Hope we don't meet any police cars," he muttered. Because if they did, there were _so_ going to be pulled over. And he had a sneaking suspicion that "I slit my wrist but was saved by a Reaper" was not going to fly as an excuse.

Sam eyed him. "I'd suggest wiping your face on something, dude, but I don't think that's going to help at this stage."

Dean glanced across at him as he turned the key in the ignition. "I hate to break it to you, Sam, but you're not doing much better yourself." It was true: although Sam wasn't as drenched as Dean was, Dean had bled all over him while performing CPR, never mind the blood from Sam's own wounds. Even Sam's dewy eyes wouldn't be able to help if a patrol car stopped them.

"Well, it's past one," Sam observed. "With a bit of luck..."

Dean raised one eyebrow at that. _Luck_? Sam could be such an optimist sometimes.

But luck must have been with them after all, because they didn't meet any cars at all on the drive back to Bobby's house. Dean was relieved, but the relief didn't ease his feeling of uneasiness.

Back at the house, Bobby took one look at them and went to add alcohol to the coffee he had brewing. Dean left Sam to explain what had happened while he went for a shower to try to wash the blood off.

It took a long time. Arteries bled like a son of a bitch, and the blood had gotten _everywhere_. It was an alarmingly long time before the water began to run clear. And it gave Dean far too much time to think, something he really could have done without, right then. The memory of Sam lying pale and broken, horribly silent - trying to find his pulse, and failing...

Yeah. Not something he'd be forgetting soon, even if forgetting things became an option again at some point.

And to cap everything off, the demon had escaped.

He wondered why Tessa had done it. He'd told Sam more than once that she could be trusted, that she was capable of killing the demon and determined to do so. And he'd been sure she would. Not that he wasn't glad to be alive, because he was.

But somehow it seemed that every time he survived, someone else paid the price. And the price was always too high.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of people were dead. And their lives hadn't even been used to destroy the demon which had killed them - they had been used to save Dean. Again.

Not that he thought the ghost back in Marshfield, Celia, had been in any way justified in going around stealing away people's memories - frankly, he was still half-tempted to go back and burn her bones all over again, then maybe grind them down to dust - but Dean couldn't help but feel some reluctant sympathy for her. He would never willingly surrender his memories, because they were part of him and how he became the person he was, but _fuck_, some of the ones he'd made that night hurt.

_Better leave some hot water for Sammy_, Dean thought distractedly as the water finally started to run clear, and turned the shower off and wrapped a towel around himself. All of his clothes were a complete write-off: both he and Sam were good at getting out bloodstains, but there were limits.

Sam was waiting in the guest bedroom when Dean left the bathroom. He glanced up, eyes flickering across Dean's body, checking for damage, and relaxed slightly when he evidently found none. "You leave me any hot water?"

"Payback for that motel in Wisconsin Rapids, Sam, what can I say?" Dean rummaged through his bag for something clean to wear.

Sam disappeared into the bathroom and Dean listened for the sound of the shower turning on, then slowly pulled on a clean t-shirt and shorts. He was exhausted. Whatever Tessa had done, it had healed him and restored at least most of the blood he had lost, but his body still seemed to know it had undergone some kind of trauma.

He crawled into bed, but forced himself to sit up and stay awake. He wanted to see for himself that Sam was okay when he returned after washing all the blood off.

Great plan in theory, but in practice Dean couldn't stop himself from slipping into a light doze, even sitting up awkwardly as he was, head tilted back against the wall. He couldn't pinpoint the moment when his doze shifted into deeper sleep; all he knew was that he suddenly jerked awake as Sam gently shook his shoulder.

"Horizontal tends to work out better for sleeping," Sam said, smiling at him. "Seriously, you should try it sometime."

Dean groaned quietly and rubbed at his face. "Smartass." He looked Sam up and down. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, Dean, honestly," Sam said with a hint of exasperation. "You know, I'm pretty sure you never used to fuss this much."

Dean wasn't sure how to respond to that. _I've never felt your heart stop before_ was probably not a good thing to say. _I normally hide it better_ was also something he was not about to admit. "Whatever," he settled on finally. 'Whatever' was a good response. Covered a multitude of sins.

"Something's bothering you," Sam observed. "What's up?"

Dean debated actually answering him. _You almost died tonight. The demon escaped. Tessa brought me back instead of killing it._ Yeah, or not. "Nothing."

Sam sighed. "Fine, play it that way. I'll just wait until we're in the car and play pop music at you until you cave and tell me." He turned away, snapping off the light and climbing into bed.

Dean briefly contemplated crawling under his own covers and shutting out the world, but he couldn't quite bring himself to move. Instead he sat there, listening to the quiet sounds of Sam getting comfortable.

"I'm sorry."

For a moment, Dean wasn't even sure that he was the one who had said it; he certainly hadn't planned to say it. _Guess that pop music threat hit harder than I realised_, he told himself. It was as good excuse as any.

Sam's covers rustled. "For what?"

Dean stared straight ahead, glad for the darkness. He wasn't sure he could talk about it even this much if he were able to see Sam. "It got away."

He could almost hear Sam's frown, darkness or no darkness. "Yeah, but that wasn't your..." He trailed off, and Dean took a deep breath and plunged on.

"I told you she could be trusted to kill it. And she didn't."

There was more rustling as Sam sat up. "She didn't because if she had you would have _died_, Dean."

Dean lowered his head, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "Yeah, but -"

"Yeah but _nothing_," Sam near-exploded. "_That_'s what you're apologising for? That you didn't _die_? Dean, man, you have got to stop this! You think I give a damn about killing the demon if you're going to get yourself killed in the process?"

Dean opened his mouth, but Sam overrode him.

"You were the one who begged me not to shoot Dad while it was possessing him. You were the one who made me see that there would always be another chance to get it without any of us having to die in the process. I know you're still trying to wrap your head round what Dad did, but you don't get to just throw your life away! Not even to get the demon, Dean. You want to apologise for something, you can damn well apologise for slitting open your fucking _wrist_, you can apologise for trying to kill yourself, you can apologise for trying to convince Tessa to kill you, but don't you _dare_ fucking apologise for living!"

Silence. Dean didn't have any idea what to say, except: "I'm sorry."

Sam exhaled sharply. "Dude, you walked in there tonight intending to kill yourself. I mean... Jesus, Dean. I don't even know what to do about that."

"No," Dean said, his voice sounding strange in his own ears. He cleared his throat and tried again. "No. I didn't, Sammy. I didn't. I was going to treat the wound after I released the binding again. Even when you cut the artery, it's very rare for people to die from a slit wrist. It was a bit risky, but I wasn't trying to..." It was the truth. He hadn't been trying to kill himself. But the risk had been real: he hadn't been entirely certain whether the ritual would permit him to treat his wound or whether it would claim his life regardless, and he'd accepted that risk.

"But you did ask Tessa to let you die so she could kill the demon," Sam said, and his voice sounded odd too.

Dean was glad that it was too dark to see his face. He said nothing.

"It has to _stop_, Dean!" Sam insisted. "This job is dangerous enough without you actively trying to get yourself killed. If I were to try a stunt like that in exchange for the demon being destroyed, you would kick my ass from here to Texas and back again. For starters. We've lost everything else. It's just you and me, Dean. Don't... don't make me lose you too. Don't do that to me, man."

Just the thought of Sammy pulling something like that made Dean shudder. "Okay," he said quietly, blessing the darkness yet again. "Okay. I get it."

"Do you?" Sam asked softly. "Do you really, Dean?"

_The despair in Sammy's voice as he asks "And now I'm going to lose you too?"_

The determination as he says "Watch me."

Sam's eyes in the rearview mirror as he says "Not before everything."

__"Yeah," Dean said, just as quietly, his voice tight. "Yeah, I do."

There was silence for a moment, before Sam said "Good." There was more rustling as he lay back down. After a moment he added, "Horizontal, Dean. Seriously. Try it out."

Dean huffed a laugh and crawled under his covers.

He was asleep before he could think of a suitably witty comeback.

~*~

  
___  
_He knew she was there even before he saw her. She was perched on the bed beside him, watching his face thoughtfully as he opened his eyes.

"Hello, Dean. Forgiven me yet?" Tessa asked serenely.

Dean didn't bother to sit up. "Why did you do it?"

"My choice," Tessa said. "It broke the rules, and that gave me leeway, like I told you. To act... and not to act. I had the power to choose, and I did."

Dean glanced away and Tessa's mouth quirked in a faint smile.

"You'll have other chances to take out the demon," she continued quietly. "But there won't ever be another you, Dean Winchester. It was my choice, whether to take the deal you offered or not. Not yours."

Dean sighed. There was a long moment of silence before he murmured, almost inaudibly, "Thanks."

"My pleasure," Tessa said, just as quietly, with a smile.

After a minute, she said, "Much as I've enjoyed our little chats, you should start getting some proper sleep again, Dean."

Dean's eyes cut back to hers. "That mean you're going to stop visiting my dreams?"

Her smile was just a little rueful. "No need for me to do so now. You set me free. Thank you for helping me, Dean. Most people would have run in the opposite direction."

"Not much point in trying to outrun death," Dean cracked, then sobered. "Besides. It was because of me you were possessed in the first place. I had to try to help."

There was another moment of silence, and then Tessa stood up. "Look after yourself. And your brother."

Dean let his eyes fall closed. "You too."

He felt the dream-hospital start to slip away as his mind sank back into the restful darkness. The last thing he was aware of was the faint brush of her lips on his cheek.

"Be seeing you, Dean," she murmured, and was gone.


End file.
